


the road goes away from here

by mimsical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Animal Traits, Dom/sub Play, Fae Magic, Gift Giving, Kink, Kink Negotiation, Lack of Communication, M/M, Marriage, Service Top, Sex Pollen, Subspace, Xeno, my one and only au where dirk consistently tops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-17 21:20:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: In order to ensure the sanctity of his village, Jake marries a faerie prince.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or: how to marry a fae prince in 5 easy steps

This time of year marks the end of your little garden’s harvest, the last of the late-season squash, the few summer berries you didn’t snag all wrinkled and dried up on their stems. The day is sunny and crisp: good weather for working out of doors, provided you’ve a good pair of gloves and a tolerance for cold ears. Cleaning up your garden, readying the earth for the not so far-off frost is the best sort of work, leaves your mind as sharp as the chill in the air. 

The sun creeps over the horizon as you check which plants need water and which are well-quenched. For your garden you use the water from the stream that runs some fifty feet from your back gate, even if it’s a hassle at times to lug your buckets and watering cans back and forth. Your grandma always said the added exercise did you good, and your memories of her haven’t led you astray yet. 

The grass is lush under your boots as you follow your little worn-down path to the water, and the morning is the best sort of still: hushed and anticipatory, waiting for something to disturb the calm. 

At the stream you bend, careful not to wet your shoes, to fill your watering cans. When you go to straighten back up, your neck prickles, a chill running down your spine. 

You stand, slowly, and raise your eyes to the forest. A deer watches you from the shadows of the trees, with its dark animal eyes. It’s young, you think, from the size of its antlers, but old enough to be on its own. It gazes at you steadily, unflinching, without the fear you associate with the deer you’ve spooked before. 

When you try to take a step back, unnerved, you stumble, water splashing over your feet. You look up and find the buck still watching you as you back away, retreat to the safety of your garden. Every time you check, it remains, observing you, until you finally latch the gate shut behind you and it turns and disappears back into the forest, as silent as it had arrived. 

You keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the day, but the deer does not return. Evening sets in, dusk alighting over the village, and you tell yourself to brush off your unmerited worries. It was just an animal, nothing you haven’t seen before. You take your supper at the table, warm baked squash from your garden, and bank up the fire. 

Last week you pulled out an extra blanket for your bed. You’ll be glad of it tonight. The air’s gone cold with the change in seasons. 

In the morning you rise early, dress for the morning, take a minute to shave your face, break your fast. The garden beckons once again, and you follow its summons gladly. One bed is near-empty. You’ll begin covering it with hay to shield the earth soon. For now, you need to water again. 

Your hand is on the gate, eyes subconsciously searching the trees, when you see a flicker of movement and stop short. _Don’t be silly,_ you tell yourself. It would be a whole handful of crackers off a full clutch if it were the same animal. You push open the gate firmly and march down to the water. 

_It’s not the same deer,_ you chant to yourself as you fill your watering cans again. Finally, unable to resist the temptation any longer, you look. 

You and the buck regard each other. 

“Good morning,” you call, like a fool. Its ears swivel forward at the sound of your voice. Embarrassed, you hurry back to your garden. Whenever you glance up, it’s still there, as if perfectly content to watch you do your work. You fumble and drop a watering can, spilling its contents everywhere. Swearing under your breath, you pick it back up. You’ll need more water. 

You take a deep breath and descend back to the stream. The deer moves through the trees in a strange, sinuous way, coming closer. 

“You’re no ordinary animal, are you?” you ask quietly. 

As if in response, it steps forward, out of the shadows of the trees. Your breath catches in your chest. No, that’s no typical animal. No deer you’ve ever seen has a tail longer than its body. You’re not sure if you should be frightened or awed, and settle for staying frozen in place. When you say nothing more, the tip of its tail flicks, and then the deer turns and vanishes back into the forest. 

You rush through the rest of your chores and hide indoors for the rest of the day. Like yesterday, the deer stays gone for the rest of the day, though that doesn’t stop you from peering out your windows every half-hour to check. You’re meant to be storing away your harvest against rot for the winter today, but your concentration is shattered. 

The creature was… frightening, certainly, to some degree. Beautiful, also, in the way that strange glimpses of magic often are. You wish idly that you were an artist so you could try to capture it on paper. 

The pattern holds true the next morning. The deer is waiting for you when you poke your head outside, but doesn’t approach this time. You actually manage to concentrate and get your work done, despite knowing there are eyes watching you. At one point you return to the stream to fill a bucket and think the deer has departed, only to realize that it has bedded down in the grass at the edge of the treeline, appearing to be enjoying a snooze in the mid-morning sun. Well, you can’t blame it. You don’t think watching you weed can be very interesting, and you’ve fallen prey to the lure of sleeping through the morning more often than you like to admit. 

Eventually, you run out of things to do in your garden, and loiter for a moment. Pushing through the gate, you march back down to the stream and call across it, “I’m all done for the morning. Heading back in.” 

The deer lifts its head to look at you and then pushes up on its long, thin legs. It retreats into the trees, long tail swinging behind it. 

You take Jane some of the food you bring her every year. Pickled beets and carrots, rhubarb jam, beans packed away tight. She invites you in and you help her put them away in her pantry. 

“People are saying that they think that some of the Good Folk are afoot,” Jane says. You nearly drop a jar on her smooth, clean floors and barely catch it. 

“You don’t say?” you ask, trying for casualness. “What makes them think that?” 

“There’ve been pixie rings popping up along the forest,” she replies. “Someone’s cat came home with rabbit ears some days ago.” 

“Huh,” you say, weighing the jars in your hands. “Well, can’t argue with the evidence, I s’pose.” 

“This is bad news, Jake,” she says. “Please take it seriously. If a gate to their world opened up in the woods, we may all be in serious danger. Tell me if you see anything strange, won’t you? My dad and I and some others are organizing to track all of the signs. Just remember that if a stranger approaches you, be very careful what you say or accept from them. Understand?” 

“Right-o, Janey,” you say. “My gran told me all about the Good Folk. I’ll be on high alert, don’t you fret.” 

“You’ll tell me if something happens?” she presses. “The safety of the village may be at stake. We’ll need to be sure we know exactly what’s been happening in the village if they approach us directly.” 

You swallow a knot and promise that she’ll be the first to know. Then you hurry home and check out the back windows to the forest again. There’s nothing there, as you expected. 

Slumping back against the wall, you heave a sigh. “Oh, Gran,” you say to the empty house. “There’s a mess about to happen, I can feel it. Don’t let me make too much of an ass of myself, won’t you?” 

Your deer companion keeps greeting you in the mornings for the rest of the week, even the morning when it rains. For that one you just wave energetically from across the stream and run back inside. The garden will keep. It sure doesn’t need watering in this weather. You keep saying hello, but try not to say anything beyond pleasantries. No need to invite mess to merrily come muck up your life. 

One day the following week, you finish storing your squashes away in the root cellar. It’ll be odd not to have so much work to do anymore. At least you’ll have time to catch up on your knitting soon. You’re restless, thinking about the winter ahead. It’s still some ways off, a few months at best, but you don’t like the idleness of it. Never have. 

Needing something to do, you step out into your garden to take inventory of what you have left to accomplish. Finish covering the beds, clean up your tools, reinforce the fence… You’re partway through making the list up in your mind when you get that crawling sensation of being watched, the same one you felt the first time you saw the deer. 

It’s night. Dusk has turned over to darkness and stars sprinkling the sky. Your house behind you is lit only by candles and firelight. Cautiously, you light a lantern and latch the gate firmly behind you. Nothing gets in without your permission, you remind yourself. The path down to the stream feels longer in the dark, but when you reach the water you hold the lantern up and peer through the shadows. Your light catches and reflects on a pair of eyes in a way that’s familiar to anyone who’s lived by the woods. Your deer is back. 

“Out awfully late, aren’t you, chum?” you ask. Whisper, if you’re honest, but it seems to hear you just fine. The eyes move towards you, and you strain your ears to listen. Finally it’s close enough for you to see. 

The deer pauses at the water’s edge and turns in a circle, catching its tail up over its back. You watch, bemused, until it moves forward and takes a step into the water. The stream is wide but shallow, hardly an impediment at all. You take a step back, unsure, and the deer stops, still in the water but very close to you now. 

You don’t know what to say, if you should say anything at all. In the lantern light the deer’s eyes glitter, reflecting, and it’s bigger up close than it was from a distance. Larger than most adolescent bucks. 

The deer extends its head forward and you hear it take in short, snuffling breaths, getting your scent. You think it would be the height of rudeness to turn and flee, but every cautionary tale you know is clanging alarm bells in your head at a truly alarming volume. 

“Um,” you stammer. “Can — is there… what do you…” 

The deer snorts, bobs its head. You have no idea what that means. It leans forward again, taking half a step in your direction. You raise a hand, half-warding, half-questioning, and it tilts its head towards it. 

“Oh,” you breathe, and cautiously extend your hand out. It doesn’t pull its lips back to reveal razor teeth and tear your bleeding fingers from your body for an evening snack, so you reach out a little more boldly until your fingers graze its nose. Ever so carefully you move your hand to the side until it rests against the deer’s neck. You rub your fingers back and forth in a tiny motion, marvelling at how soft its fur is. 

The deer gazes at you unblinkingly, clear intelligence written behind its eyes. Your breath shakes out in a shudder. 

“You’re, um.” You wonder at this wisdom of these words, but forge on, needing to say something to break the charged silence. “You’re quite a striking creature, if it’s not… imprudent to say.” 

The deer blinks at you, slow and languid. It presses into your hand. 

The moment has to end, as all moments do. A dog begins barking in the distance and the deer’s ears swivel towards the sound. It shifts a restless step back and you reclaim your hand, maybe a little too hurriedly. 

“Well,” you say. “Um. I’ll be seeing you, I suppose.” You take a step back, lower your lantern a little. “Goodnight, then.” 

It bobs its head like a human might, then turns and returns to the far side of the stream. You don’t move, and it turns back once for a final look. 

The next morning the deer is absent, to your surprise. You stand around foolishly on your side of the stream for a few minutes, in case it was late arriving, but to no avail. Distracted, you go about your day, wondering what caused it to break pattern. You hadn’t slept well last night, tossing and turning over in your head what this all could mean. There was no denying that the deer scared you. It’s appearance hit you right in the childhood fear of the dark and the unknown, Grandma’s tales of poor fools who ran amuck with the fae folk. 

And yet… you didn’t feel _unsafe_ , for whatever it was worth. Cautious, unnerved, certainly, but you hadn’t really thought for more than a moment that it intended to harm you. 

Then again, if the stories were true then most fae didn’t consider what they did to people to be _harm_. 

You should tell Jane. You really should. 

You don’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm writing this as a jamfic, which means i'm writing it live, for an audience. i have the story loosely planned out but writing it is going to be very fun :D
> 
> title comes from [this poem](https://www.theawl.com/2014/04/a-poem-by-richard-siken/)


	2. Chapter 2

The reason for your deer companion’s absence becomes clear the next afternoon. Someone knocks on your door and you open it to find Jane’s little cousin, John, out of breath and pink-cheeked.

“Jane sent me to come get you,” he pants. “She says that the faeries are here in the village.”

“Shit,” you breathe. You turn and grab your coat and stuff your feet into your boots without bothering to do up the laces properly, follow John down the road. He takes you to the square at the center of town, and you come to a startled halt when you see why Jane sent for you. Three strange beings stand there, facing off with what looks like half the village.

You’d never mistake them for human except at half-glance. One of them has wings like gossamer that barely brush the cobblestones. Another is furred and stooped, as if standing bipedal didn’t quite agree with them. The third wears a loose dress that hides its body, but what you can see of their arms is stick-thin in a way that makes your skin crawl, like an insect’s limbs. They’re all beautiful in the worst way, a way that makes you afraid to look directly at their faces.

Summoning your courage, you pick your way forward to join the crowd.

“...Haven’t had neighbors in many years,” Jane’s dad is saying, in an easy, genial sort of way. “Change is good, keeps everyone sharp, I always said.”

“Certainly,” says the furred one, smiling to reveal teeth like a wild dog’s sharp incisors. “We’re always pleased when a new gateway opens up between our homes. Humans build in such interesting ways, so different from how we live. I admire your ingenuity.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” he replies. “We all do our best, I’m sure.”

“Janey,” you breathe, touching her arm. She turns her head to you in slight acknowledgement, but keeps her focus on the conversation.

“Yes,” agrees the faerie. “I believe we do. But, to business.”

“To business.” Jane’s father straightens up. You have always admired his strength of character. He doesn’t show a lick of fear before these beings.

“I don’t think it will be untoward to say that there has been a fraught history between ourselves and the human settlements we sometimes find ourselves neighbors to. Would you agree?” This faerie must be the spokesperson — spokesfae? The others seem content to observe. The insectoid one’s eyes keep skittering over the crowd.

“There is truth to that statement,” Jane’s dad returns evenly.

“We come as an envoy from our community, sent by the highest-ranking of us. In fact, one of the highest-ranking in all of the Autumn Court,” they continue. “We would like to form an accord now, at the beginning of our time as… neighbors, for however long this relationship may last.”

“An accord?” Jane’s dad raises his eyebrows. “Do you have something in mind?”

“Yes.” The fae smiles in a way that seems decidedly dangerous to you. “A marriage.”

There is a stir in the crowd. Jane draws in a sharp breath. Marriage? What, between one of them and someone from the village? How would that work?

“The one who sent us offers to marry the fairest of your village,” the faerie says. “The two of them shall bear the accord between them, and in return our communities shall leave each other at peace.”

“That’s… a strong offer,” Jane’s dad says. You can see that they’ve taken him aback. “The… fairest of the village, you said? That’s…” He clears his throat. “The trouble is that humans don’t rank ourselves in such a manner. I’m not sure if it’s common for you, to know who amongst you is fairest…? We would have to deliberate.”

The winged one is smiling, displaying perfect shiny human teeth, in a way that makes you want to put walls between the two of you. The insect one shifts on its hidden feet. The one who has been speaking smiles also.

“Unless I’ve misunderstood,” Jane’s dad says.

“Certainly, deliberate, if it puts your mind at ease,” says the faerie. “We are more than happy to wait.”

The fae entourage retires to the side of the courtyard, where they glimmer and murmur and laugh amongst themselves. Jane is stone-faced, lips pressed together.

“Dad,” she says in an undertone.

He quells her with a glance and turns to the assembled crowd. “I’ll not ask anyone to go if they do not wish to,” he says quietly. “But I’m sure we all understand the dangers of letting the Good Folk run unchecked near our homes. I have a sense they may already have someone in mind, but we should be prepared with a counter-offer, someone who thinks they have the strength of will to survive this, should they choose someone unsuitable.”

Silence. For a long moment, silence. You don’t think anyone wants to be the first to speak.

“I’d be willing,” Jane says softly.

Her father puts an arm around her shoulders. “You’re a very brave girl,” he tells her. “Does anyone else—”

“She’s not the fairest, though,” someone says. Jane’s expression goes tight. _Plain Jane_ , they called her, when you were growing up. You’d seen her cry about it, when you were little, before Jane decided that if she were to run the village someday she should be made of steel.

“You shut your mouth!” you snap. It’s not true, either. Jane is very pretty.

“An objection has been raised,” her dad says, holding Jane reassuringly against his side. “Would you like to volunteer, then?”

The person who’d spoken up subsides. “I only meant we should be sure,” they mutter.

“I can do it,” Jane says, more loudly. “I can withstand their tricks, if it means keeping us all safe.”

“I could do it,” someone puts it. It’s Celia, the barkeep’s daughter. She looks nervous. “You’re too important, Jane. The village needs you here.”

Jane shakes her head. “This is an important task,” she says. “I wouldn’t want someone to unnecessarily be hurt.” She checks over her shoulder. The faeries may or may not be in earshot: you have no idea if their ears are better than yours. They keep shooting your group amused looks. “Who knows what will happen once they get their hands on one of us.”

“Well,” you put in. “From what I know… Gran did a lot of research on the subject, you know. If I’m recalling correctly, if you’re to be bound to a fae, marriage is your best bet at surviving. You and your spouse can’t enact harm on each other directly, and the other fae are meant to leave you alone, as you’re under your spouse’s protection.”

Jane shoots you a look, half grateful and half telling you to stay quiet. “Still,” she says. “I have no doubt they know many ways around that.”

There’s more muttering, people reluctant to speak up. Celia looks uncertain, but folds under Jane’s determined expression. You don’t want it to be Jane. She’s been your friend for years, and you know her. She’ll try to do something noble-hearted, or lose her temper at the wrong moment, and she’ll be lost from you. Your heart aches already seeing her steadfastness.

“You don’t have to do this, Jane, you know that,” her dad murmurs to her.

“I know,” she replies. “But I will.”

Nobody speaks. The air is somber with the realization of what Jane is willing to do for you. You want to reach out to her, maybe take her hand, but you don’t think she would welcome it. She’s gone so still and grim, like she’s already gone. You wrap your arms around yourself.

“Very well then,” her dad says, and you’re startled by the gleam of tears in his eyes. Grief, or pride, maybe. “Let’s tell them.”

The faeries look up when everyone moves back in their direction. “Finished deciding?” the main one asks, eyes lingering on Jane, still wrapped under her father’s arm.

“Yes,” she says, and steps forward, away from the safety of the crowd. “I’d be honored to accept the offer of marriage.”

The faerie smiles, too wide, looking her over. “Pretty,” they say. “You’re fair, that’s true. But the prince already made his selection, I’m afraid.”

So her father was right. They were just toying with you. It's terrible, but you're relieved. You don't want it to be Jane.

“Prince?” Jane echoes.

The insect one makes a funny chittering noise that sounds like laughter. “The Prince of Autumn,” they say. “Which of you lives in the house by the stream and spends its days cultivating a little garden?”

Jane looks at you so fast that you haven't so much as finished processing the question. You take a reflexive step back.

“What, me?” you blurt out, mind racing. The deer. What was it, a scout for this prince? Some fae animal sent to spy on you?

The furred faerie looks you up and down. “You match the description,” they say lightly.

Jane takes a step toward you, as if to put herself as a barrier between you and the faeries. Affection swells in you. You're not brave like she is.

You have to swallow several times before you get get your voice to work. “When — when would I have to marry him?”

“You accept his suit, then?” The faerie folds their clawed hands in front of them.

You feel frozen. Everyone is looking at you, some probably just glad that they aren’t the one who was chosen. If you do this, the village is safe, isn’t it? You should do it. Jane was ready to sacrifice herself for all of you.

When you speak, your voice is small and weak as a mouse. “I… I, yes. I accept.”

“Lovely,” the faerie says. “He’ll come to wed you in three days, by your reckoning of time, then.”

“Three days?” Jane asks, voice sharp like a whip crack. “I don’t know what’s customary for you, but we usually have negotiations between families before an engagement or wedding, to be sure the couple can provide and care for each other.”

This seems to amuse the faerie. “I stand as negotiator for the prince. Who represents you?” he asks you.

You don’t have any family, and stand there mutely.

Jane lifts her chin. “I’ll represent him.”

Their eyes gleam. “I see. Shall we speak now, or is there a time that better fulfills this custom?”

“Now suits me fine,” Jane says coldly. “Shall we sit and discuss?” She reaches back towards you and digs her fingers into your wrist. Her father is dismissing the rest of the onlookers, shooing them off to give you privacy. He claps you on the shoulder once, gives you a look that you think is meant to bolster your spirits.

The faerie speaks briefly with its companions, who turn and leave the square, heading in the direction of the forest. Jane pulls you with her to the side of the square and gestures for the fairie to sit first, at one of the benches. She sits between you and the faerie, straight-backed and stern.

“So, the one you represent is a prince,” she begins. “Does this mean he has the wealth to provide for a spouse?”

“He has gold, jewels, food, a home.” The faerie remains perfectly placid. “He would not have sought to marry if he did not think he could house a human. Most of us do not marry, as you may or may not know. He is certain of his intentions.”

“He believes he can house a human? So Jake will be required to leave his home and come live in his, instead?” Jane folds her arms. You have to peer around her to watch this face-off. “That hardly seems fair. Jake’s home is an old family home. He could hardly abandon it.”

“Of course not,” the faerie agrees. “They may visit each other and share homes as they please.”

“His house, is it large?” Jane presses.

The faerie shrugs. “It has multiple levels, to my knowledge.”

Multiple levels. That means stairs. You can’t imagine a deer climbing stairs, so there goes your fleeting hope that you might have met the prince already.

“Will he be able to eat the food from your land and still be able to return?” Jane asks.

“Um, I know that one,” you try to cut in. “A fae marriage has provisions for… things such as food, and…” You trail off when Jane gives you a look.

“Are you implying that the prince might try to keep his husband confined?” the faerie asks Jane politely.

Jane has the good sense to back off. “Of course not,” she says. “I’m only trying to adapt the standard questions to this more unique situation. Do you have any questions for us?”

“No,” the faerie says. “The prince has chosen, and cares not for details small as houses and riches. His offer is a joyous honor, and the wedding shall be a glorious event. It should be held on the edge of the forest, should it not? This is, after all, a bond between our two worlds.” They rest their claws on their very human-like knees. This close up, they are much more clearly nude except for fur. You stare at the ground.

Jane seems cowed. “That does seem fitting,” she says weakly, then tries to regain ground. “So his house is fit for a human. What about the rest of your… town? Is it hospitable?”

“Would you like to visit and find out?” offers the fae.

“I think we have enough information,” you interrupt. “It was very gracious of you to indulge us in this negotiation.” You grab Jane’s arm and tug her upright with you. “I look forward to seeing you at the wedding.”

“Jake—” Jane tries to tug her arm free.

“Janey, we need to discuss preparations for the ceremony!” you say with false brightness. “Goodbye, then, hope we didn’t inconvenience you.”

“Until the wedding,” the faerie agrees, and watches you retreat with Jane all the way down the road.

 

* * *

 

The next three days seem to pass in a blur. Jane hovers, asking to borrow your Gran’s journals so she can learn about the fae. You assure her over and over that you can take care of yourself, that you have been doing so for years. People you’ve known your whole life and people you don’t know well at all come to wish you well and thank you for protecting the village. By the evening before your wedding you’re so nervous you hardly sleep, and actually get up at one point to pace your bedroom floor.

You doze for a few hours before dawn, then rise again early to get ready. The day before you had dug your best clothes out of the wardrobe: a nice linen shirt you’ve hardly worn, clean pants and boots, your best coat. You wash your hair and try to comb it into obedience, shave, and wrap your clothes around yourself like armor. Breakfast is a small meal that you hardly choke down, stomach feeling more like a writhing nest of snakes than a receptacle for food.

You strike out through the town on your own, not wanting to wait for someone to come escort you. People are rising, getting ready for the day. They look at you with sympathetic eyes. You want to tell them not to lose their heads at the wedding, if they attend. You’ll survive, that much you feel reasonable certain of.

Jane meets you in the town square. She’s dressed up proper and pretty, too, and squeezes you in a tight hug.

“You’re getting married,” she says, voice wobbly.

“So I am,” you reply.

She sniffs and dabs under her eyes with her sleeve. “Here,” she says, and coaxes you to sit. She daubs kohl along the line of your eyelid, just above your lashes. “I’ll not have my best friend go to his own wedding plain-faced,” she says, some of her usual scolding tone returning. “You’ll look like a proper faerie spouse.”

You blink several times when she draws back. She studies you critically, then sighs. “It’ll do.”

“It’ll be alright,” you tell her, one final time.

“It had better be,” she returns. “If anything happens, if you need help, you know where to find me.”

“I do,” you agree. Talking to her has managed to bolster your spirits a little bit. “Will you walk with me?”

She takes your arm as you rise. Together you make your way to the edge of town. You’ll not have a funeral procession’s worth of villagers at your heels to take you to be wed. They can find their own way if they please. Jane is enough company for you.

The beginning of the forest is as ordinary as ever. You spent have your childhood roaming about, exploring with your grandma and then on your own. Its paths are as familiar to you as your own home. You know exactly where to turn to find the edge of where the forest now begins to blend into a fae forest. The unfamiliar trees, the call of a bird you’ve never heard before, they show you where to go.

When the air around you begins to hum with the energy of the true turning point to Faerie, you stop. Jane is clutching your arm tightly, but shows no other sign of fear.

“I… suppose we wait for them to find us,” you say, now uncertain. “And for the rest of the partygoers to catch up.”

“I told them to start coming to the forest an hour past sunrise,” Jane says, glancing around the trees. “They should follow soon.”

The two of you wait, murmuring quietly to each other about inane things, just to stave off the silence. You begin to get the feeling of being watched, but put it aside. The fae will reveal themselves when they’re ready. True to Jane’s assessment, folks from the village begin to arrive, in little groups and pairs. Some offer you encouragement, but most leave you be. You’re grateful for that. You wait, arm in arm with Jane, for the other half of the wedding party to arrive.

All at once the faeries appear, melting out of the shadows between trees or swooping down from branches. Some of the villagers take a startled step back, but you hold your ground.

“You came,” says one of them. You realize on second glance that it’s the winged one who came to the village before.

“I said I would,” you say, trying to look brave and unafraid. “Where’s my husband-to-be? Is he on his way?”

The faerie rustles their wings and says nothing more. You look around at the others, searching for a hint, but none of them step forward. Then, through the trees comes a flicker of movement. The deer who had been watching you before takes another step in your direction.

Your grip on Jane’s arm, which had slackened during the wait, tightens. “I know that deer!” you tell her in a hurried whisper.

“A deer?” She sees where you’re looking. “You can’t marry a deer, that’s absurd!”

You still weren’t certain the deer is the prince, but your doubts evaporate as Jane frees herself from the loop of your arm and steps back. The deer approaches slowly, gazing at you with those familiar dark eyes, long tail twitching at the tip. You hold your breath as it stops a few feet in front of you, afraid to break the silence.

Abruptly the deer rears up, the way it might if reaching for food in a high place. Unlike an ordinary deer, it stays up on its hind legs, and you realize with a start that its appearance is changing. Slowly, smoothly, the deer shifts its form, torso and legs becoming straighter, face turning human. You’re left staring up into the eyes of a tall man, albeit one with antlers, a tail, and the legs and ears of a deer. His eyes have changed, too, warming from dark brown to honey-gold.

You clear your throat. He’s also completely, utterly buck naked. “Um,” you manage. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he returns, in a voice as low and smooth as silk. You flush involuntarily.

Alright, so he’s tall, and not a chore to look at. There’s that. You try to affix your gaze to his face, and not stare anywhere else. His tail is restless and distracting. He extends a hand to you — an ordinary, human-looking hand. You take it. His skin has an odd texture, soft fuzziness like suede. You resist the urge to pet him.

“You asked to marry me,” you say in a small voice.

“If you’ll have me,” he replies.

You nod. “I said I would.”

He gestures to his accompaniment of fae, and one of them steps forward and gives him a folded-up bundle of fabric. Releasing you, he shakes it out and pulls the cloak across his shoulders, then takes your hand again.

“Walk with me?” he invites.

You glance back at all the villagers who came for you. “What about…”

“They’ll be fine,” he promises. Squeezes your fingers.

You swallow down your fear, exchange one final glance with Jane, and let him lead you away.


	3. Chapter 3

He takes you just away from the main gathering of your party, further into the trees along the border of your world and Faerie. Behind you, you can hear what sounds like the start of a party. Voices, music perhaps. They fade away as you walk, hand in hand with the deer prince.

He doesn’t yet speak again, and you nibble uncertainly on your lip until he draws you both to a halt.

“Will you sit?” he invites. He kneels, legs tucking under himself and to the side to accommodate the length of his final stretch of leg. You follow suit as he arranges his cloak around himself again, tail snaking out to brush your ankle when you sit.

“I don’t know how a fae wedding goes,” you admit quietly.

“It’s not so different, I should think,” he says. “We offer each other our Names. We make each other promises. Loyalty, affection, care. I then take you under my protection.”

“Our Names,” you repeat, a tingle of fear and awe creeping up your spine. To have a faerie’s name is a large power, and for one to have yours is a significant danger. Gifting them to each other would be… an act of immense trust.

He acknowledges you with a faint smile. Leaning forward, he cups your face and murmurs in your ear, “My name is Dirklin Strider.”

“Dirklin,” you whisper.

“Dirk, if it pleases you.” He draws back and looks at you expectantly.

You swallow hard. “I'm Jake English.”

He nods. “Jake English, I swear that you will always have a place in my home and in my heart. No harm shall come to you from my hands, nor from any other, so long as I have a way to prevent it. I take you as my husband, to care for and love, for the length of our lives together.”

Oh, that's a lot of words to repeat back. “Dirklin Strider, I swear to you that you will always have a place in my home and in my heart.” You hesitate.

“No harm,” he prompts.

“No harm will come to you from my hands, or by any other hands if I have a way to prevent it. Um. I take you as my husband, to care for and… love.”

“For the length…”

“For the length of our lives together,” you finish.

In one smooth motion, Dirk unclasps the cloak from around his shoulders and leans forward. He wraps it around your shoulders and pulls the drape of it around your body before hooking the clasp back together. You gasp and grab his arm to cling to it as a wave of _something_ suffuses your body. It’s powerful and full of heat, settles around you like a gentle net. The feeling fades after a moment into a distant background purr. Dirk takes ahold of your hand and kisses your knuckles.

“What was that?” you demand.

“The marriage bond,” he says. “I felt it too.” He unfolds your fingers and kisses your palm. His face has the same velvet, almost furry softness. You flush to the tips of your ears again at the touch of his lips.

“What — what now?” you ask shakily.

He smiles that same tiny smile. “I expect there’s a party we’re meant to attend.”

You nod. Dirk releases your hand when you try to tug it back. You pull the cloak more securely around you. It’s incredibly soft, warm and heavy against you. Wool, you think, some type of wool. You sneak a glance back at Dirk, feeling a little shy, and catch him watching you wrap the cloak around yourself.

“So we should go back?” you ask.

He nods, and pushes himself back to hook his legs below himself and stand up to his impressively tall height. Sitting, he wasn’t much taller than you, but his long, deer-jointed legs give him a whole stretch over you. You stand, and gather up the dregs of your courage to take his hand again. This time, you’re the one to lead him on your way back to the party.

 

* * *

 

If you’re honest: most of the party is a blur. All the humans you saw demanded to know if that was it, is it done, are you married now? Jane touches your cloak quietly, tells you the clasp is made out of antler. Then Dirk asks if you’re thirsty and hands you a wooden cup filled with something that fizzes on your tongue. Jane is frightened to see you drink something fae, and you tell her that it’s fine, it’s safe so long as he’s the one who gives it to you. Besides, you're not feeling particularly up for sobriety at the moment anyway.

Then the drink fills you up with dizzy giddiness and time blurs together.

You remember the music, vaguely, Dirk spinning you around in a dance, him righting you when you stumble.

You remember sitting with Jane under some tree, her head on your shoulder, watching the faeries flitter about. Carousing is a good word, you think to yourself.

You remember at one point realizing that Dirk has earrings in the long stretches of his stag-like ears. When you point them out, he wiggles his ears mischievously, and you laugh.

You remember someone giving you a handful of berries, and offering them to Dirk. He eats them from your fingers, eyes on your face the whole time.

By the time you realize, startled, that evening has come, you’re starting to feel more like yourself again. You’re leaning up against a tree, huddled up into the cloak as the air turns chillier. It’s warming, like wearing a blanket or a warm embrace. Dirk is occupied with speaking to Jane’s dad, but sees you looking at him and excuses himself to come over.

You drop your gaze to your hands and remember what comes after a wedding. You think you’d rather be in your own home, for the next part. It’s too late to worry about inviting him in. You as good as gave him an equal claim to your gran’s old house already.

“How are you doing?” Dirk asks you.

You laugh a little, embarrassed. “Bit less foggy-brained. Look, I was just wondering… how long are we meant to stick around? For us humans, ah… the happy couple usually sneak off at some point during the festivities to, you know. Head home.”

Dirk shrugs. “There’s no requirement that we stay.”

“I see. Well, dandy.” You scuff some leaves up with the tip of your boot. “Will you come to my house?”

“If that’s your wish,” he agrees.

You nod and look around. Nobody seems to be watching you anymore. The whole party seems to have devolved into some kind of musical style show-off fest, with a couple of fellows who are a dab hand at the fiddle competing with a trio of fae musicians. Everyone else is dancing, having a riot of a time.

“Will they be alright?” you ask softly.

Dirk touches your shoulder reassuringly. “Any debts incurred here will be easily paid off. It’s practically expected that mistakes be made during a party, after all, and we’re not on anyone’s territory.”

You take a deep breath. Time to stop stalling. “Very well then.” You pull away and take Dirk’s hand one last time. “Follow me, if you would.”

He follows you, a step behind, letting you lead him with beguiling docility. You tell yourself not to look back, and put one foot in front of the other until you’re back amongst familiar trees.

You don’t want to stroll through town with your new faerie husband, so you take a longer route, turning away from the bridge when you find the stream and winding alongside it instead. Dirk is quiet, and you’re content to let the silence rest.

Finally the two of you come to your house and you blow out a frustrated breath of realization. You should’ve crossed the bridge when you had the chance: you’ll have to get your boots wet now. Dirk notices your hesitation and eyes you sidelong consideringly.

“You don’t want to step in the water?” he asks.

“Yeah, it’s just.” You wave your free hand tiredly. “My fancy shoes don’t keep out water well, that’s all.”

“I understand,” he says. “Here, I can carry you across.”

“You can?” you look at him startled.

“Sure,” he says, and tugs you closer gently. You go with him, still bemused, and he hooks his arms under your legs and back to scoop you up neatly. He steps into the water and you wrap an arm around his neck.

“You’re unexpectedly strong,” you tell him.

He laughs softly and deposits you back on dry ground. “Comes with the territory. It’s so we can easily carry off helpless virgins.”

You look at him so fast that it hurts your neck.

“Joking,” he tells you.

“Haha,” you say, rubbing your neck. Hand on the gate, you add in a slightly offended mutter, “I’m not a virgin.”

Dirk laughs again, and follows you through the garden to the backdoor. You push open the door and gesture him in wordlessly, curious to see if he still needs a verbal invitation. He doesn’t. You kick your boots off and then stand there, nerves singing back through you abruptly. If only you were hungry or in need of a bath or something, give you a little more time to stall.

No such luck, unfortunately. Dirk stands there naked as ever, looking at you with that blatant curiosity of his. You push aside your anticipatory anxiousness and give in to your own curiosity, reaching out to touch his shoulder and exploring the texture.

“Bedroom’s upstairs,” you say. “If… if that’s what you want.”

“Is that what _you_ want?” he returns.

“I’m… not opposed,” you say. It won’t exactly be a hardship to sleep with this pretty fae creature.

“Not opposed,” he murmurs. “That’s different than willing.”

“I didn’t — I meant it as the same thing,” you say. He takes a step closer and your mouth is suddenly dry. You lick your lips nervously and rise up on your toes slightly to make it easier for him, tilt your head back so he can kiss you.

His mouth is warm. When he pulls back after just a moment, your lips tingle with the sense memory of his kiss. No, this won’t be a hardship at all. You lean up to kiss him again, more lingeringly, getting used to the shape of a new mouth and the way his suede fur skin tickles your nose.

“Come on, then,” you say against his cheek when you pull away. You drop back down to flat feet and turn, checking to make sure he’s following. His hooves click across the wood floor. You worry for a moment that he’ll have trouble on the stairs, but he climbs after you with no trouble.

You cleaned your bedroom last night in a fit of insomnia-fueled anxiety, for which you’re now very grateful. Dirk sits beside you on your bed, which makes the final stretch of his legs stick out amusingly. It’s easier, like this, when he’s close to your height and you’re just looking at his mostly human face. You wonder if his antlers weigh his head down at all when he tilts his head. Turning, you take your glasses off and rest them on the nightstand behind you.

His tail sneaks around you and lands in your lap. You look down at it, surprised, then pet it inquisitively. It’s sleek and soft, the fur of it longer than you’d realized. You bury your hands in it, feeling childishly delighted.

When you look up, Dirk’s smiling again. “Sorry,” you say.

“Don’t be,” he says. He’s still looking at you in a way that brings heat to your face. It’s weird to be looked at with such clear interest, but also, well, flattering. You reach out, emboldened, and trace the edge of one of his ears, fingers bumping over his earrings. His eyes slide shut and you sneak a glance at his lap immediately. Alright. Interesting. Definitely not, er. Human. But nothing too bizarre.

His ears are nice, actually. Delicate and soft. You reach the side of his head and cup his neck to lean in and kiss him again. He makes a muffled, surprised sound against your mouth, then kisses back. His mouth is human, at least. He kisses like any man might, really. You keep kissing him, relaxing into the idea of sleeping with him, enjoying the warm buzz of necking with someone who is good with their mouth.

...Maybe that buzz isn’t all just burgeoning lust. You pull back, frowning. “Is the marriage bond acting up?” you ask.

Dirk nods, and leans in to kiss along your jaw. His antlers brush against your hair. “It’ll settle eventually,” he says, breath huffing across your skin. “No need to worry.” He kisses up to your ear and runs his tongue along your earlobe. You grab his knee and try not to groan aloud.

“Do those have sensation?” you ask when you regain your voice. “Your antlers?”

“Yes, somewhat,” he says. “You can touch them, though, if you want.”

You do want to, guiltily fascinated by all the facets of his body. They’re warm under your hand when you touch them, tilting your head away so he can keep kissing your neck. The texture is soft, almost like how his skin is, smooth fuzziness. Below the velvet his antler is almost waxy in texture. You keep touching it carefully as he lifts his head back up to kiss you again.

They’d make decent handles, you think. So long as you were careful. They feel delicate. You don’t want to hurt him.

“It’s almost a shame to take off this cloak,” you say at last, when you have a moment to catch your breath. “It’s beautifully made.”

“Leave it on,” Dirk suggests, eyes half-lidded. He moves a hand to your chest questioningly, and you nod. He starts undoing the buttons of your coat, then the ones of your shirt. You shrug them both off and drop them to the floor. The house is a little cold, and you gather the cloak more securely over your arms. You can see that he’s aroused, or getting there, and you shiver a little. You think you want to touch him. He clearly wants to touch you.

You settle for trailing your fingers over his chest when you kiss him again. He copies you, finds a nipple and brushes his thumb over it. That’s nice, and you kiss him harder to encourage him. Dirk gets the hint and rubs over it again until it’s hard and pebbled under his touch.

He pulls back and you chase his mouth, curl your hand around his side. Yes, you definitely want to touch him. “Dirk,” you say against his mouth. You slide your hand down his stomach questioningly. “Can I…”

Dirk nods, and you pull back so you can see what you’re doing. His dick is different than yours, that’s for sure, lengthy and tapered, covered with long hairs. You run an experimental finger up the length of it. His hips twitch, and the hairs move to cling to your finger as if trying to wrap around it.

“Um,” you say. “It’s… friendly?”

He huffs out half a laugh. “I take it yours doesn’t do that,” he says.

“I don’t have funny friendliness hairs on my cock, no.” You try again, wrapping your hand around him loosely. The hairs curl around your fingers again, not actually holding you there, but clearly trying to. You can feel the strange buzz of the bond again, warmth gently permeating through you like a soft hum emanating from your sternum.

Dirk exhales a rough, shaky breath when you pump him once. His tail, which had been resting limply against you, curls around you more tightly. He tips his head back a little, exposing the column of his throat. You lean in to lick it as you tighten your grip. He’s beautiful, but also very collected and calm. You want to see what he looks like when he can’t resist the pleasure anymore.

He groans as you continue stroking him, hips occasionally jerking up to meet your hand. Nothing new there. He’s really very long, though. He would be incredibly well-endowed were he human. At least he doesn’t have the girth to match it. Not to jump too far ahead, but, well. He’s your husband. It doesn’t seem out of the question that you’ll be doing this again, maybe many times. You wonder what he’d feel like inside of you. It wouldn’t be such a stretch, but with this length… it could be pretty darn good.

“How’s this, then?” you ask. “Good?”

His eyes are shut, mouth partly open. “Mm, yeah. It’s good,” he says. You lean in to lick at his mouth and he willingly opens up for you, tangles your tongues together. He sucks on your tongue, then pushes back and licks into your mouth in turn, getting a good taste of you. You keep working him over, able to keep your pace steady and faster now that you’ve gotten a handle on what you’re doing.

Dirk reaches up and tangles a hand in your hair, keeps you pulled towards him where he can kiss you. It’s tricky to keep your balance, leaned forward like this. You brace your free hand on his shoulder and he hooks a hand around your waist and pulls you into his lap unexpectedly.

You lose your grip and fumble to stay upright. He helps you settle over him, straddling his lap, and presses a curious hand to the front of your pants. You swear under your breath as he plucks the buttons free and rock into his grip. He rests a hand on your lower back and encourages you along, rubbing you through the thin fabric of your underpants.

It takes you a few moments to regain your breath and reach for him again. The texture of his dick is so different with the funny hairs. Not just because they move with you and curl in the air, searching for your hand, but it’s just… different.

Dirk gets your dick out of your pants and you rock your hips forward, wanting to know what it would feel like against you. He lets you move closer and bats your hands away so he can wrap a hand around both of you. The hairs curl around you immediately, this weird clutching sensation against your sensitive skin. When you roll your hips through his grip they cling to you in a tickling slide.

You can’t decide if it feels good; it’s too new. Dirk tilts his head to kiss your neck again and you squirm against him. “Wait, wait,” you say, panting. He pulls his head away from you inquiringly and you grab his hand and bring it up to your mouth. “Sorry, it’s just easier if…” You lick his palm, feeling a fresh surge of heat at how his eyes fix to your mouth. “It’s better if it’s not dry,” you finish once his palm has been wet.

“Understandable,” Dirk says. The next pull of your dicks is wetter, smoother. You rest your forehead against his, shut your eyes, and try not to clutch at his shoulders too obviously to stay up. He rubs your noses together as you grind into his grip, kisses the very tip of your nose. When you open your eyes, he’s smiling at you with a hint of mischief.

“I want to use my mouth on you,” he says, plain out. “Can I do that?”

“Oh,” you breathe, feeling so warm and dizzy that you’re afraid you’d tumble right over if he weren’t holding you up. “Alright.”

He kisses your nose again and lifts you with him, both arms around your back, scooping you up cloak and all, turning the two of you together until you’re laid out in bed with him over you. His tail curls up along your side, the tip brushing your face. It’s so long. He touches your jaw and you turn to kiss his hand.

“Just like this?” you ask.

“Yes,” Dirk says. “Just like that. You’re lovely.”

Bewildered by the sudden praise, you lose your chance to reply. Dirk slides down your body, presses a kiss to your hip bone. He holds you in place with his hands, one on your hip and the other around the base of your dick, and runs his tongue over the head of you. You quiver under his hands and you see him quirk that same little smile before he slides you into his mouth.

You’d noted, before, that Dirk clearly had some experience. He was too good with his mouth to not. Here you verify this theory. He slides your foreskin down, curls his tongue under the head. His mouth is exquisitely warm and wet, and he slides you deep into his mouth right from the start. “Dirk, that’s — oh, fuck, that’s aces, Dirk — ”

He looks up at you, lips stretched around your dick. His ears are curled forward, towards you, like he wants to catch every sound you make. You fall back flat against the bed and curl your toes when he gives you a slow, thoughtful suck. He bobs his head, swirls his tongue and you moan outright.

“Dirk, gods, Dirk.” You remember your earlier thought all at once and reach down to wrap a hand around one of his antlers. His eyes flick up to yours and he pulls his mouth off of you with a pop.

“You can grab them, but be careful,” he says. “They’re a little delicate.”

“Yeah, of course,” you breathe, and prop yourself up better so you don’t put strain on them.

Dirk nods in approval and sucks you back into his mouth. Your grip tightens, but doesn’t yank. You just need something to hold onto, the sheets, his antlers, anything. You try to buck up into him and he presses your hips flat warningly.

“Please, oh gods,” you whisper when he starts fucking you into his mouth again. “Dirk, please, yes. I need — ” You trail off and just moan.

He pops you out of his mouth again and strokes you with one hand. “You’ll have it,” he promises. “Whatever you need, whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

This is too confusing to manage mid-coitus, so you just nod and cry out again when he takes you deep. He licks and sucks you until you’re shaking too pieces under him. You’re too far gone to be embarrassed about the noises you’re making, and just writhe for him. Dirk rubs your hip soothingly until you reach down between his antlers to fist your hand in his hair.

“I’m close,” you choke out.

He just sucks harder, slides up to the tip of your dick and then takes you all the way in again, moves his hand from your hip bone to cup your balls. You come with a shout, dropping back flat against the bed again and turning your face into his tail to muffle your desperate panting. His tail curls around your neck like a caress, and you look back down in time to see him pull off of you and lick the last of your come from his lips.

Dirk reaches down to take himself in hand, and it’s almost too much. You want to hide again, but you also want to reach for him and pull him down over you, feel his body work against yours. You settle for stroking his tail as he props himself back up to look at you, exposed and still breathing like you’ve run a mile, laid out before him. The way he looks at you almost burns, almost covetous in its desire. He rests a hand on your thigh, keeps you splayed open for him, and when he comes, it splatters against your stomach.

“Fuck,” you whisper.

Dirk presses both hands to your knees to stay up for a moment. He’s terribly attractive, you think. You’re afraid for a moment that you judged yourself wrong, that you’ll be eaten alive by his beauty.

“What a mess,” Dirk says, lifting his hand from your knee and eyeing the smear of come he left on it apologetically. “My bad. I’ll clean you up.”

You snort out a laugh. “I’ve had worse splattered on me,” you assure him.

He raises a sardonic eyebrow. “Well, that sounds like a story. You don’t want me to clean you up, then?” He leans down and runs his tongue flat over your knee, and you shudder from head to toe at the unexpected sensation.

“I mean, I’m not stopping you,” you say weakly, as Dirk bends, mindful of his antlers, to lick the mess off your stomach. His tongue swipes over you in wide, efficient strokes, ignoring how your abdomen jumps under the feeling. When he’s done and you’re thoroughly cleaned up, he pulls back from between your legs and arranges himself carefully beside you. You reluctantly let go of his tail in case he wants to move it, but he only tucks it more over you, until the whole length is draped over your stomach and wound back over to your neck. Hoping it’s just comfortable for him like that, and not because he noticed how much you liked his tail, you wrap an arm over it.

“That was nice,” you say at last. You reach up and finally unclasp the cloak, let it fall to the bed under you.

“I agree,” Dirk says, curling up against your side. You consider whether it would be weird, then turn onto your side as well so he’s behind you. Dirk plasters himself to your back with no compunctions about it. You curl your arms around his tail guiltily. It’s very soft, you reason to yourself. Like a warm, furry pillow.

“You’re staying the night, then?” you ask, fighting down a yawn. You’re not sure what time it is, but you slept poorly last night. You’re ready to bed down for the night.

“Unless you’d rather I didn’t,” Dirk agrees.

You shake your head, yawning again. “No, stay.”

He kisses the back of your neck, and you fall asleep like that, not even under the covers, but warmed by the heat of his body.

In the morning you’re under the quilts, so one of you must’ve made an adjustment at some point. You suspect it was Dirk, because you feel like you hardly so much as dreamed all night. Dirk kisses the side of your face when you wake, his hair all a mess around his antlers. You lend him a brush for it and get dressed, less comfortable with casual nudity as he is.

“Do you need this back?” you ask, indicating the cloak that’s left tangled amongst the blankets.

“No,” he says. “It’s yours now.” He’s on his feet, stretched to his full impressive height.

“Are you leaving?”

He nods. “I have to go back during the day.”

“Oh.” You watch him bend to look in the mirror one last time. “But… you’re coming back?”

“Tonight,” he promises. “Every night, if it suits you.”

The idea pleases you maybe more than it should. “I’ll be here,” you promise. “If you like, I can make dinner.”

“I’d be honored,” he says. He moves back across the room to kiss you once, chastely, hands cupping your neck. “Until tonight.”

“Until tonight,” you echo, and walk with him to the back door. You watch from the window as he latches the gate shut behind him and turns back into a deer before bounding off, disappearing back into the woods as quickly as he first appeared in your life.


	4. Chapter 4

You are hiding in your house that afternoon, nursing a cup of tea and trying to decide what to make for dinner, when Jane just about breaks your door down with the force of her knocking.

She glares at you when you pull open the door. Everything about her, actually, seems to point at you in accusation, from her messy hair escaping the attempt at a sensible bun in frizzy strands to her day-old shirt and sleeplessly bruised-dark eyebags.

“Hi, Janey,” you say brightly, attempting to diffuse the situation with all immediacy.

She flings herself forward and embraces you. You’re surprised still, and she pulls back before you can react. Jane smooths down her shirt, looking self-conscious.

“You’re okay,” she says.

“I — yes,” you say. “I’m right as rain. See?” You hold your arms out to demonstrate your degree of fineness.

She cranes past you into your house. “Are you… alone?”

You nod. “Just little old me here. Do you want to come in? Or maybe you’d best be getting home, you look in awful need of a rest.”

“No, I’m fine,” Jane says, shivering in a gust of wind. “I just needed to be sure you were all right. Are you sure you are? He didn’t… hurt you? In any sort of manner?”

“Fit as a fiddle, I promise you,” you say. “He didn’t lay a finger on me! Er… so to speak. No harm was done. By either of us.”

Jane sags. “Oh, good. I was worried. It all happened so fast. I still think we could have found a way to turn him down, you know!”

You do know. There are ways to decline a proposal from the fae, no matter their ranking. “It’s best this way,” you try to assure her once again. “Are you sure you won’t come in? I’ve got the water hot for tea.”

“Well… maybe,” Jane allows, and you step aside to let her in.

You settle her on the couch with your best wool blanket, make her a nice piping cup of tea to warm her up. She does seem to settle, wrapping her hands around the mug and shutting her eyes briefly with a weary sigh.

“How about you?” you ask, taking a seat in your armchair. “Are you well?”

She frowns into the depths of her tea. “That party was… raucous,” she says. “I’m not sure how long it went on. I felt obliged to stay and represent the village, but it was a bit much, I’m afraid. I’m plum worn out!”

“That’s understandable,” you say, reaching for your own mug again. “I hardly remember half of it. Think I drank too much.”

“You did,” Jane says dryly. “You complimented me on my hairstyle no less than four times.”

You wince. “Well, I’m sure it was merited. You looked smashing, after all. How long did it all go on, after I left?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jane leans back against the couch more, letting the tension drain out of her. “I was out rounding up the stragglers for hours after it was really over. I was only home for a few minutes before I came over to check on you.” She scans you up and down with a well-trained eye. “He was awfully bold, that prince. I hope it doesn’t sound terrible to say that I’m surprised to find you so… perky.”  

You hide your embarrassed frown in a sip of tea, and nearly choke on a too-large swallow. Clearing your throat, you say, “Well, yes. I think it’s all normal to him, though, if I’m making sense? Like I think culturally, he wasn’t behaving in too forward of a manner. I don’t think he’s in the business of harming anyone too deliberately. And besides, it was in our vows not to find a way to hurt each other.”

Jane’s attention sharpens. “Your vows, yes, I meant to ask. You were gone for such a short amount of time, not long enough for a real ceremony. Do you mind me asking what he said to you?”

You try not to flush and focus on your mug rather than Jane’s penetrating stare. There’s a small chip out of the rim. “Well… it’s a bit private, but I don’t mind you knowing. We just… made some promises, not to hurt each other and to be loyal, that sort of thing, then he gave me his cloak.” You know her; she’ll want to see the cloak. Good thing you left it upstairs draped over the back of a chair. “The one I was wearing yesterday, if you remember. That’s all there really was to it!”

If you shut your eyes, breathe slowly, and let your mind dwell on thoughts of Dirk, you can feel the marriage bond humming contentedly inside you. But Jane doesn’t need to know this. It would worry her far more than you feel up to managing. Really, she doesn’t need to know any more details at all, like how you slept with Dirk’s tail curled over you like an extra blanket, how when you woke in the morning you could feel his breathing stirring the hair on the back of your head. Hell, if she doesn’t already know it there’s no reason to tell her that he spent the night.

“Interesting,” Jane says. “You’re right. That is very different from how we do it, isn’t it? Odd bit of cultural differentiation.”

“I suppose,” you say. “He’s coming here this evening, for dinner.”

You regret saying this when the worry comes back into Jane’s face. “Is he bringing you food from their lands?”

“I… no, I said I’d cook, but it — it’s safe for me to eat his food, so long as he’s the one to give it to me, right? It, er, wouldn’t be proper courting, would it, to ensnare a husband you already caught?” You swallow the rest of your tea in a gulp and try to think of a way to change the subject. “There’s not much possibility for danger, here on my own grounds.”

“I suppose,” Jane sighs. “Still, I worry.”

“You’re a good friend, to come check on me after the night you had!” You set your mug down on the table with a decisive clink. “Have you had anything to eat? I could butter up some slices of bread for you! And I’ve got some of that lovely jam you like so well. Perfect with a cup of tea, if I do say so myself.”

You’re already on your feet and headed to the kitchen before Jane belatedly says, “Oh — I don’t mean to be any trouble…” You wave her off and slather up a few slices of bread, plunk them on a plate and make yourself a fresh cup of tea.

Jane eats her toast in small nibbles, the same way she has since she was just a little girl. You do, actually, appreciate her worry, though it’s for the most part unwarranted. It’s nice that she still cares, after all these years of putting up with your fanciful notions and wrangling you into facing adulthood. You do have to get started on dinner, and Jane seems to recognize this. Or, perhaps, she’s just so worn out that she’s eager to get home. She refolds the blanket and you see her to the door when she’s ready to go. Jane doesn’t embrace you again, but she does smile and wish you luck for your evening.

Your evening, which you now have no choice but to face down. What does one cook, for the Prince of the Autumn Court of Faerie?

You settle on making your grandma’s best stew recipe, bracingly warm against the nightly chill. Making a recipe you know so well relaxes you, and you let yourself concentrate on the easy repetition of chopping the potatoes and onions, letting the meat rehydrate in the pot of water while you work. You hope he’ll like the recipe. If he doesn’t, well, the fae are known for their politeness. He’ll probably not say it outright if he hates it.

Besides, it’s Gran’s recipe. There’s no way any creature could turn their nose up at it.

The knock comes at your back door when the stew’s still got a good half hour left to simmer, the sun hanging low in the sky. Dirk stands there when you answer, and you are startled to find him actually clothed this time. Well — clothed is a stretch. He’s not wearing anything above his waist. But he’s got a funny skirt from hips to the first joint of his legs, some sort of linen-looking fabric. It’s not a bad look, and doesn’t seem to bother his tail.

He smiles hopefully when he sees you. “Hey.”

“Hi!” you say, realizing all at once that you’re still wearing your ratty old apron, the one you made out of leftover scraps of fabric. “Do come in. The stew’s still got a minute to cook, though, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine,” he says, ducking to get his antlers under the door frame. “I don’t mind at all. It was very thoughtful of you to offer to cook for us both — which is to say, I mean. Thank you.”

 _Thank you._ Dangerous words to say in fae company, for you never know when they’ll decide to take your words and twist them. You think he’s trying to remind you that you don’t have to worry overly about what you say to him.

“You’re welcome,” you say, and gesture him in. “Do you want a glass of wine? I don’t think it’ll be nearly as strong as the stuff you’ve got in your leg of the forest, but it was made by one of my neighbors, who’s got a real talent for that sort of thing.” You’re running your mouth like a nervous child around his first crush. Unduly embarrassed, you hurry to check the stew, which does not need checking, and rid yourself of your apron.

“That sounds lovely, if it’s no trouble,” Dirk says.

“Wouldn’t have offered if it was,” you reply, and wave vaguely towards the couch and fireplace. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right there.”

You busy yourself with pulling out the bottle and two glasses, trying to settle your suddenly rattled nerves. When you turn, you find him examining the portrait on the wall, of you when you were small with your grandma.

“Is this you?” he asks when you approach.

“Indeed it is,” you say, stepping over his tail. “And that’s my gran. She’s… been gone a fair few years now.”

He nods and accepts the glass quietly. “It’s a good portrait,” he says.

“I like it,” you say simply. You watch as Dirk turns to examine your bookshelves and knickknacks, reaching out only once to trace the binding of an older book. You think that maybe he’s a little nervous, just like you are.

“This is a lovely house,” he says at last. “It’s been in your family a long time, hasn’t it?”

You nod. “Grandma grew up here as well.”

“I can tell,” he says. “It feels very well-loved.” He bends to read one of the titles. “Oh, I have a copy of this. _The Tales of Alinda_.”

“All the books were my grandma’s, but they’re mine now,” you say. “I haven’t read that one, though.” You take a sip of your wine, a little flustered by his thorough investigation of your living room. “Is it good?”

“The book? I liked it.” He takes a drink of his wine as well. “This is good, too, by the way. Your neighbor who made it is indeed talented.”

“I’ll pass on the compliment,” you say. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a reader. Hope that isn’t an intolerable shortcoming of mine.”

He glances at you, a quick amused flicker of his bright eyes. “If it was, I’d have asked upfront, wouldn’t I have? I’m hardly going to un-marry you over your interests.”

That’s right. He’s your husband. You married him, didn’t you. Oh, goodness. He’s rather more intimidating today that he was yesterday.

You wish you could think of a way to recapture how at ease you felt around him last night, short of tearing your clothes off and declaring yourself ready for another ravishing, which frankly wouldn’t be true, anyway. You feel terribly tongue-tied. His tail flicks, brushing against your ankle, and you nearly jump out of your skin in surprise.

“That’s a nice skirt,” you say helplessly, trying fruitlessly to come up with something more interesting to say.

He glances down at it. “It’s one of my favorites. It seemed… better, to wear something.” He glances at you apologetically. “If I’ve been shifting forms, it’s easier not to be wearing any clothes. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t,” you say. “I noticed that your… friends? They were all in varying stages of dress. I thought maybe you just preferred to not be dressed.”

Dirk shrugs. “It depends on the occasion.” He turns away from your shelves at last. “I wanted to say that I appreciate your willingness to accept my offer of marriage, despite not knowing me. I mean to make good on my vows. I want to make you happy.”

He’s terribly earnest, and you can’t help yourself anymore, and burst into giggles that border on hysteria.

“I — was that funny?” Dirk sounds taken aback.

“Sorry,” you gasp out between fits of laughter. “I’m not — I’m not laughing at you, I promise, I — ” You bury your face in your hands and try to swallow your laughter. “It’s just. I didn’t expect this, not at all. Not even a little bit. There’s never been anyone that I was interested in marrying, and… I suppose I thought it just wasn’t for me, and then you come along, and it’s all happened so quickly, and…” You trail off, and bite the inside of your cheek to try and stop laughing. Dirk is worryingly silent.

“I thought,” you manage at last, mostly settled, “that if I wanted to get married, I’d have to travel. But that seemed like an awful lot of effort just to find a spouse. And then you found me! Picked me right out from the edge of the forest. I didn’t have to do anything at all.”

When you peek at him, he doesn’t look affronted, to your relief. Just thoughtful, like he was listening to your every word, regardless of if they were rambling or senseless.

“It’s a surprise,” you finish. “But… so far, a pleasant one?”

“I’m glad you’re not displeased,” he says. His tail creeps up against your leg again, like acceptance. You relax.

“Do you want to sit?” you offer.

The two of you sit on the couch, side by side. Dirk folds his legs up carefully, turned towards you so that his hooves can rest on the ground. His tail winds towards you hopefully, around below your feet and then back up to the armrest. Feeling bolder, you pet the tip of it, and it curls into your lap in response. You smile at Dirk, tentatively happy.

“Most of what I used in our dinner came out of my garden,” you tell him. “Since you seemed to take such in interest in my gardening! I grow a lot of my own vegetables throughout the year, then string them up or can them to keep through the winter. Gran taught me everything I know about keeping a garden. She didn’t so much as have a green thumb as she had a full ten green fingers.”

“You seemed to take a lot of joy from what I saw of your work,” he offers.

“It’s satisfying,” you agree. “I plant something, then a few short weeks later it’s grown so much. Do you have gardens, where you live?”

“Of a sort,” Dirk says. “Not vegetables so much, but we cultivate whichever plants catches our eyes. I’m partial to evergreen trees, personally. I live inside one.”

“You live… inside a tree?” You try and fail to picture this. Most hollow trees you know are too small to fit more than a small child or two inside.

He smiles faintly at your puzzled expression. “I’ve encouraged it to grow large enough. We have that effect on plants, oftentimes.”

From here your conversation finally flows easier, and you chat amiably more about what you grow in your garden, Dirk attentive and curious, you with your hands buried only a little guiltily in his tail. It’s truly irresistibly soft.

Dinner is ready soon after, and you disentangle yourself from his tail to dish it up. You set your places at the table next to each other rather than across, because… well, just because. You want this to work, that’s why.

When you invite him to sit and watch as Dirk carefully loops his tail over his lap to keep from squashing it, you are hit by a wave of sudden terror. “Oh, I didn’t think to ask,” you say in a rush. “Do you eat meat? If you don’t, it’s no trouble to make something else. I didn’t even think. Drat it all.”

“It depends on the company I’m in,” he says, using his spoon to inspect the meat. “This meal is fine, and I’m happy to eat it. In larger gatherings, I often don’t, unless I want to threaten someone.” He glances up at you again. “This isn’t venison, is it?”

“No, I’d never — ” You recognize the glimmer of humor in his expression. “Oh, haha. No, it’s beef, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling broadening the smallest bit. “I could tell. You’re really fine. Please, sit.”

You sit, and offer him more wine. He accepts. To yourself, you file away a piece of knowledge: your husband has a sense of humor.

The evening goes easily, now, with the little flickers of Dirk’s dry humor and willingness to listen to you chatter on about whatever comes into your head. He tells you that the stew is good, which racks him up another few points in your head, though you resolve to be more careful about serving him meat in the future. The wine starts to get to you a little, leaving you feeling warmed through. You catch yourself wondering what’s Dirk’s expectations of you are, as the meal winds down. The flashes of his amber eyes do tend to only send more heat prickling through you.

You catch your train of thought and reel yourself in. You’ve only just met him, you scold yourself. There’s no call to be quite this eager for him, even if he has been unaccountably nice to you so far.

When you’re done, you stack the dishes in the sink to deal with in the morning and adjourn back to your couch. Dirk fidgets for a moment, then says, “I brought you something.”

“You did?” you ask, interest piqued. “What is it?”

Dirk reaches into a hitherto unnoticed pocket of his skirt and withdraws something small, that glints gold in the firelight. “I know it’s a human tradition,” he says, and holds out a ring to you without further explanation.

You take it and hold it up to look at. It’s gold, you’re fairly sure, inlaid with a design of a pair of antlers. You look up at him, wordless.

“I made it,” he says hurriedly. “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it, but I know that humans wear rings when they get married. We eschewed human tradition in the ceremony, so I thought, well, maybe you’d like it if… You don’t have to wear it.”

You close your hand around it and find your voice. “It’s lovely.”

Dirk watches you intently as you slide the ring onto your finger. It’s a bit big, and you startle as it shrinks to match the circumference of your finger perfectly. You twist it so that the antler design faces upwards and look back up at him.

“You really made this?” you ask him.

He nods. “I make things as a hobby. Jewelry’s one of my favorites because it can be both decorative and useful. Mostly decorative, though. I have a bit of a weakness for pretty things.”

“And you make things out of metal?” you inquire. “Is that ever a challenge, what with the whole…” You wave a hand — the one not currently wearing a wedding ring. “Aversion to iron?”

“My tools are mostly made of things that aren’t steel — polished stone, ceramic, glass. But I’m glad you’re concerned.” He’s still looking at your hand with that masked covetousness. “You like it, then? I thought I might make you more pieces, if you’re interested.”

You smile at him tentatively. “Well, if you wanted to, I certainly wouldn’t object! This is fine craftsmanship, Dirk.”

He seems pleased by the praise, taking another sip of wine and relaxing back against the cushions. His tail has found its way closer to the fire, the tip flicking occasionally. He seems relaxed in general. From your initial experiences with him, you’ve observed how his ears swivel around to listen. But even as the house settles around you, groaning and creaking in the way of old houses, his ears stay pointed forward.

“Did you make your earrings, too?” you ask, eyeing his hoops and studs.

“I did,” he confirms, reaching a hand up to touch one of them, a tight hoop that glitters the same gold as the ring around your finger. “You’re welcome to look at them, if you like.”

You take him up on the offer, scooting closer to take a look at the ear closest to you. The first thing you notice is that a number of his piercings are made of smooth, beautifully colored wood rather than metal, which makes sense, you suppose. A few of them have glittering stones in them, though you’re not nearly worldly enough to recognize any specific gems. Dirk holds still for you, ear extended to its full length, so you take the risk and trace the curve of one of his hoops. When your finger brushes the delicate skin,his ear twitches slightly.

“They’re quite a sight,” you say, withdrawing your hand. “Very fetching.” You sneak a glance at his face and find him steadily watching you examine him. Somehow he always manages to give you a reason to blush. Your first instinct is to retreat to the other end of the couch, but you’ve no reason for embarrassment. He’s your husband. He invited you to take a closer look, you’ve not done anything untoward.

“Can I see the other one?” you ask, instead of withdrawing.

He turns, rests his arm and side against the couch so as to be able to display his other ear for you. Some of these earrings match, but not all. There’s one earring that catches your eye right off. It’s bigger than some of the others, set with tiny stones that form the suggestion of a flower.

“This one is pretty,” you say, reaching out to touch it. “The flower.”

“That one I did not make,” he says. “It was a gift from when I was younger. From a human, in fact.”

“A human?” you echo, surprised.

“Yes,” he says. “She is the wife to a fae from Spring.” When you start to draw back, he reaches up and catches your hand.

“A faerie wife,” you say, meeting his gaze.

“She’s a clever woman,” Dirk says lightly. “I found I respected her a great deal, when we met. But that was some time ago.” He lifts your fingers to his mouth and kisses the tips of them, then releases your hand. You drop it back to your lap and curl your fingers over, as if trying to keep his kiss there.

You sort of want to kiss him again. From the way he’s been looking at you all evening, you doubt he’d object. But you hesitate for a moment, looking him over.

“She lives in Faerie?” you ask instead.

“In a garden in Spring,” he confirms. “There are not many humans in our realm, but I have met a few.”

“I see,” you say.

He doesn’t continue the conversation, just looks at you with his eyes like a clear-skied sunset. You swallow your nerves down.

“Not to change the subject too drastically,” you say, “but I was wondering if… well, if you’d find it objectionable if I were to kiss you?”

His eyes burn brighter. “You may kiss me,” he says, “whenever you like.”

You fight down a nervous giggle, and lean away to set your wine glass down on the table. Dirk does the same, and settles facing you. You breathe in through your nose and reach out to cup his cheek, lean in until you’re braced against his arm and your noses brush together. His eyelids finally flutter shut and you tilt your head to brush your lips together.

If you’re candid with yourself: you never intended to kiss him once and be done. You let your kisses melt together like butter in a pan. He kisses back, slowly, a little wetly, with a drowsy heat that makes your spine tingle. You can feel the metal of the ring around your finger, and he must feel it to, with your hand against his jaw.

His hand creeps up into your hair, fingers winding into it and scratching idly at your scalp. Kissing him is… nice, pleasant. It’s so strange. You feel so comfortable with him. Maybe it’s the magic of the marriage bond beginning to hum contentedly louder in your veins, or maybe it’s the same magic that led him to pick you out from the trees, the magic of knowing someone before you know them.

You part, pull back enough to see the banked desire for you in him. It’s suddenly a bit more than you’re readily able to handle, the way he looks at you like you’re a festival treat he can hardly believe he won. He makes no comment as you draw back fully, lets you slide from his hands without a hint of resistance.

Well, why would he need to hold you there? He has his ring on your finger and his cloak in your bedroom. He’s won you squarely, and you don’t think you have it in you to be anything more than secretly delighted to be wanted so thoroughly.

Maybe not tonight, though. You lick your lips, and say, “Well! You’re quite excellent at that, you know.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he replies, smooth as ever. “You’re a good kisser, too.”

You flush again, unaccountably pleased, and if you carry that warmth with you all the way until he curls beside you in bed, this time clothed, you don’t think you can find a lick of guilt in yourself for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there has been some very beautiful art made for this fic and i'm tremendously grateful!! please check them out, i'm collecting them in [my tag for this fic on my tumblr](http://www.mimsiical.tumblr.com/tagged/deer-husband) and give the artists all the love they deserve :D


	5. Chapter 5

You restrained yourself to light kisses your second night together, but the third night is much more heated. Dirk brought you sweet berries from his neck of the forest, and you can hardly resist licking the sweetness out of his mouth. He clearly enjoys it as much as you, one hand on your hip to egg you on, the other fisted in the back of your shirt. Eventually he backs you up toward the couch and you balance yourself over him. He’s a tad too long for it, hooves hooked up over an armrest, but he doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

“You’re lovely in firelight,” he tells you, unbuttoning your shirt nimbly.

“Flatterer.” You push his hands away and pull your shirt over your head, give him your skin to explore.

“It’s true,” he says, smoothing his hands up your chest immediately. He reaches up to pull you closer and scrapes his teeth over your collarbone. You arch against him with a groan. “You’re lovely in all lights, but the fire makes you glow like you’re carrying sparks below your skin.”

“I don’t think that means anything,” you gasp.

Dirk nips you again, gently. “It means I want to touch you all over when I see you like this.”

“That I understood,” you say, and curl one of your hands into a fist on the armrest next to his head and antlers so you can wriggle down and kiss him.

The sweetness on his tongue from the berries is all but gone now, but you lick into his mouth nonetheless. Dirk slides a hand down your back to palm your ass, bold, making you laugh and hitch against him.

“Why are you still wearing these,” he complains, petulant, picking at the hem of your pants.

“I wouldn’t be, if a certain someone weren’t keeping me busy,” you retort. You squirm out of his grip, laughing again at his reluctance to let you go, and hop off the couch to unbutton and kick your pants off. Dirk, likewise, divests himself of his skirt, and stretches out again. He’s one to talk about looking appealing in firelight.

You don’t leave yourself time to be abashed by your nudity, and climb back on top of him. The bond sings in your veins as soon as his naked skin touches yours again, and you bend to kiss against the corner of his mouth. He turns, captures your lips and slowly, methodically pries your mouth open with his tongue.

It’s a little cold without your clothes, even with the warmth of the fire, and you lean down closer to him under the downy softness of his chest presses against yours. You were trying to leave some space between your hips, but the tip of his dick brushes against your thigh and you shiver at the crawling sensation of his hairs tickling you, trying to cling to your leg.

Well, no point in pretending this isn’t exactly why you disrobed. You shift to straddle him properly, lower down until you feel the hairs on his dick reach up and latch onto yours. He makes a low noise in his throat, which echoes through you like a pop of sparks from the fire. You rock yourself against him tentatively, gaining enthusiasm when he rolls his hips up against you in return.

Dirk gives your tongue one final suck before tilting his head back to breathe in deeply. The hairs around his dick curl around you, making the strangest texture as you slide through them. You've never felt a texture like this before against your dick, but you certainly think you could get used to it. It is by far not a bad sensation, just an unusual one.

“Jake,” Dirk says against your ear, his breath hot on your skin. “You’re something else, you know that?”

You make a noise low in your throat, flushing uncertainly at his tone. You really don’t know how he manages to be coherent in moments like this.

“You really are,” he says, breath rushing out in a faint gust of a laugh. “You're fucking gorgeous for one thing.”

“Whatever,”  you say, choked. “You are a terrible looker yourself. Those legs and all.”

“Sure,” Dirk says. “But, really. _Your_ legs are something to see, too.” He punctuates this statement by reaching down again and cupping your ass with both hands, squeezing for emphasis.

You hitch against him, startled, his words pinging something in you that ratchets your arousal up higher.

“Really,” Dirk says, “I thought about laying you out again and kissing all up and down your thighs. They deserve the attention, if it's not too soon to say such things.”

“It's not,” you say, “but if you do keep up talking like this then it will be your fault when things end too early.”

He laughs against your cheek. Something brushes the back of your calves and you twitch in response to the unknown sensation, but realize it's the feeling of his tail curling over you. It snakes up the backs of your legs, tickling you in a way that's far from innocent.

“Oh,” you say piteously, and hide against the side of his face. Dirk just hold you closer, grinds up against you to keep you moving in rhythm against him. You moan, half-dazed, when he squeezes your ass again. You may be on top of him, but nonetheless you feel penned in place, held against him exactly as he likes.

“Gorgeous,” he says again reverently. Each of his words hits you in the core like a gentle blow meant to go directly to your dick.

His tail winds all the way up along your back until it reaches your neck. The longer fur of it rubs against your skin slowly, like a feeling designed to torment you. Between that and the feeling of the furriness of his skin, your brain feels inundated with sensation, too much to process and somehow all of it feeding directly into the hot pool of arousal in your belly. The hairs on his dick skip and slide against you in a way that has you desperately try to muffle a whimper into his cheek.

“Do you like this?” he asks. “Do you like how this feels?”

“Yes,” you say, embarrassed but honest.

“So many possibilities,” Dirk says. “You like this? I can do so much with that, if you only wanted. Do you think I could wind you up with just the brush of my tail over your body? I could hold you down so you couldn't do anything except feel it. Even tie you down if you wanted.”

“You can't say such things,” you choke out.

“Do you not like them, then?” Dirk asks.

“I like them overly,” you say.

“Then what's the trouble?” Dirk says. He tucks one hand under his tail against your back and runs the sharp edge of his fingernails all the way up your spine. You shudder.

“I don't know. It’s not _trouble_.” You tremble under his hands.

“If you want it, then you deserve to have it.” He kisses the side of your face, entreating. “Like I said, whatever you want, Jake. I’ll tie you down if you like that. Blindfold you?”

You dig your nails into his shoulders and gasp for breath as you move.

“You can tell me it all, any of it,” he says to you. “Would you want me to fuck you? Or just hold you like this and slide my fingers into you, one after the other until you’re squirming against my hand — ”

You come with a shaking groan against his stomach, clutching tight to him. He kisses your cheek again and again until you turn to return the kisses, still trembling. Dirk holds you in place, keeps you warm against him as you come down.

“Shit,” you finally breathe out, when you get your words back. “I did warn you, can’t say I didn’t, that you’d set me off quick if you kept on talking.”

“I don’t mind,” Dirk says. He runs his hand up and down your back soothingly. You can still feel his dick, hard against your softening one, but when you try to grind against it he shushes you, keeps petting your back. Your breathing slows as he just holds you, the urgency of your orgasm fading away into a lulling sleepiness.

“I can still do you,” you mumble into his neck.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dirk is borderline nuzzling the side of your face, and between the affection, the soothing, and the woozy rush of orgasm, you think that if you tried to stand you’d topple right on over. He is terribly, enticingly warm.

“...Been turned to pudding,” you decide. “Look what you did to me. Don’t even got legs anymore, just limp leg-shaped noodles.”

You can feel him smiling. “Just say the word and I’ll gladly carry you to bed.”

“Oh, please,” you say, before you can think to be embarrassed. Dirk doesn’t laugh, just shifts you against him until your knees bend and he can push himself up to sitting, with you sprawled over his lap and leaned against his chest.

“Hold tight,” he says, and after another moment of rearranging, he catches your legs right below your ass and lifts you straight up into the air as he stands. You cling to him as he picks his way out of the living room and up the stairs, unerringly keeping just enough room from the walls to avoid banging your feet against them.

In your bedroom he deposits you onto your bed and you splay out in an ungainly heap on your back, staring up at him with no small amount of delight.

“Just a sec,” Dirk says, and clip-clops across the room to the basin you keep for washing up in the mornings. He wets the washcloth hanging next to it and returns, first to wipe you clean with very careful hands against your sensitive dick, then to attend to himself. Only once he’s deemed you both clean enough does he return the cloth to its drying station. You kick the covers down and crawl further onto the bed, curling onto your side to entice him to curl up against your back.

He obliges when he slides in next to you, pulls the blankets up and kisses the knob at the top of your spine. “You’re lovely.”

“And you’re a terrible charmer, husband mine.” You yawn and tuck yourself into the pillow. “Sweet dreams.”

You drift off quickly, relaxing into the steady rise and fall of Dirk’s chest behind you, and sleep so deeply that you hardly dream at all.

 

* * *

 

You are a daydreaming mess the next morning.

To start, you stand at the bank of the stream with your watering can for a whole minute, gazing off into the woods and remembering how Dirk first appeared to you, before you actually collect any water. Then, after you finish your morning chores, you go back inside, only to realize that you forgot to put away your tools. At lunch you sit there with a forkful of vegetables, forgetting to eat and instead thinking of how warm and cozily you slept the night before.

Maybe you should be concerned about going more slowly, taking the time to know Dirk better before jumping in feet first. But… you don’t really see the point? You’re with him for the rest of your life. You don’t see why you should hold back.

You’re so distracted that frankly it’s more exasperating than anything when you slip on a mossy stone in the street while on your way to Jane’s. You land hard, catching yourself awkwardly and sending a shock of pain up your arm. When you sit up gingerly, your wrist twinges warningly.

“Oh, sweet bedeviling hell, of course I took a damn fall…” You tuck your wrist against your chest and stand. Nothing else seems to be injured, except for your muddied clothes. It’s not broken, you’re fairly sure. You’ve broken bones before. When you try to flex your wrist, it pulses with pain angrily.

“Darn and drat,” you tell the world at large. At least nobody was around to witness your tumble.

You pick your way down the road, keeping your arm as still as you can manage. Jane’s expecting you, and you know better than to blow her off from unfortunate, repeated experience. You can pilfer some bandages from her and replace them at a later date.

Jane answers the door at your knock (with your uninjured arm), welcoming expression rapidly turning alarmed at your no-doubt bedraggled exterior. “Jake!” she exclaims. “Are you well?”

“Slipped on a rock and went right over like a twig in the wind,” you tell her. “Think I sprained my wrist. Sorry to be a bother, but do you happen to have any bandages or some such on hand?”

“Yes, of course. Come in, get your shoes off and meet me at the table.” Jane, long-practiced at the art of directing unruly people, takes charge at once.

“Right-o,” you say, and move to take your boots off with the sole use of one hand as she hustles off. You know Jane’s home very well and make your way to the dining table without a lick of trouble, and find her father sitting and pondering over some books there.

“Ah, Jake,” he says looking up. “Jane did say you would be here.” He takes in the way you still have your arm held gingerly against you. “Are you hurt?”

“Hullo, Mr. Crocker,” you say. “Just took a little tumble, but I’m sure I’ll be right as rain soon enough.”

“Is Janey helping patch you up?” he asks.

“Yes, she said I ought to meet her here.” You take a seat and rest your arm on the table instead. “If I’m not interrupting, how have you been?”

“Concerned about the fae situation, but overall well,” he replies. “I have you to thank for our turn of good luck.” Jane’s dad has always been a very discerning man, and you feel like he can see right through you to your nervous sense that Dirk is a touch too irresistible to you.

“Yes, well.” You twiddle the fingers of your good hand. “I aspire to make sure the village stays safe.”

Jane saves you from further interrogation with her return, carrying an armful of bandages, poultices, and a damp cloth.

“Right then,” she says briskly. “Roll your sleeve up, let’s see what we’re working with here.”

You obey, wincing when your wrist turns wrong. Your palm is a bit scraped up, and Jane gives you the cloth to clean it up with, but the main problem is clearly your wrist. It’s not swelling — yet — and Jane has you move it around to see how your mobility is.

“Ow,” you complain under your breath. “I’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain, not a break. It doesn’t hurt so much when I hold still, see?”

“Yes,” she says critically, “but it can be hard to tell with a wrist. I’ll wrap it up, see if it improves.”

“You’re a doll, Jane,” you say gratefully. You dab the salve on your wrist yourself while she cuts off a good length of bandage and then wraps you up.

“Too tight?” she checks. You shake your head. “Good. You know the drill. Elevate it, don’t put weight on it, give it time to heal. I’ll give you something for the pain so you can sleep if it’s bothering you, but take it with some food in you, okay?”

“Got it,” you say, and try for a smile to reassure her. “Not my first sprain, is it?”

“No, it most certainly is not,” Jane says with a tinkling laugh. “You need to keep your head out of the clouds for once, buster.”

“I’ll try, but no promises.” You test your range of motion and find that the compression has adjusted itself down to just a dull pain instead of a stab. “Thanks for wrapping me up.”

“You’re welcome,” she says. “I do want to talk to you properly, though. We’ll get out of your hair, Dad.”

Mr. Crocker waves you off. “Go on, get yourselves into trouble.”

“We’re not teenagers anymore!” Jane protests, hiding a laugh. “Honestly, you act like we’re still sixteen.”

“I’ll keep her in line,” you say, straight-faced as you can manage.

“Jake!” she snaps, and you crack a grin.

Her dad heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Make yourselves scarce,” he says. Snickering, you follow Jane from the room.

You don’t go to Jane’s room anymore, haven’t since you were younger. She stopped inviting you into it at some point and you never pushed the issue, not wanting to have to discuss it. Which is why you’re silently surprised when she leads you up the stairs to her room. Jane gestures for you to sit on her bed, and you do, tucking your hands under your legs and watching her pick up a set of books which you recognize as your Grandma’s books on fae folk from her desk.

“I finished reading them,” she says. “It looks like you’re safe for now, so long as you keep your wits about you and don’t make any promises or redefine what safety means.”

You nod. That was your understanding, too, when you agreed to marry Dirk.

Jane sits down next to you, moves the books from her lap to the bed. “I know I asked just the other day, but… how are you? Have you seen him again?”

You lick your lips, nervous. “I’m… well as can be expected, better really! Besides this little bump.” You hold up your wrist demonstratively. “And, yes, Dirk has come by each evening.”

“Dirk,” Jane says. “So that’s his name.”

There’s a sharp, keen look in her eye, and you hastily say, “Just a nickname of his.”

“Did he give you that?” she asks sharply, and you realize after a confused second she means your wedding ring.

“Um, yes!” You let her look at it, her small fingers twisting the ring to catch the light. “He said he knew it was tradition for us, and he didn’t want me to be deprived of that.”

“And you _accepted_ it?”

“It’s — it’s just a wedding gift, Jane.”

Her grip stays tight on your hand for a moment as you try to pull it back, but then she releases you. “This is a sham of a marriage,” she says. “You deserved better than — than to be sold off to buy our safety. There’s ideas in those journals of how to keep the Good Folk at bay — ”

“Those are meant for if there was an attack, the best way to handle the fae is to spin their deals and send them on their way — ”

“You deserved better than this,” Jane repeats, and you give up. There’s no convincing her to change her mind about something when she’s angry.

“It was my choice to make, wasn’t it?” you say. “And I made it, so… so I’ll live with it, Janey.”

“Don’t you Janey me,” she says. “If you need, you could come stay here. _Dirk_ has equal share of your home now, but he can’t get in here without permission.”

“I really don’t mind so much,” you say, looking down at your bandaged wrist instead of at her.

She sighs, blows out a long breath. “You’ve gone all quiet, so there’s no point in talking about it further,” she says. “But — I won’t take the offer back. If you need me, I’ll help.”

“Appreciate it,” you say, trying to make yourself cheerful again. “And thanks for the books, I’ll get them back where they belong.”

Jane leans forward unexpectedly and squeezes you into a hug. You’re too off-guard to react for a second before you scramble your wits together and hug her back. She’s soft and comforting, like hugging your childhood. You listen to her breathe in a funny, shuddering way and… don’t regret the way things have turned out.

Maybe you’re a terrible friend for that.

Jane lets you go soon after, stacks the books back up from where they’ve slid around from the shift in the mattress. You take them from her.

“I’ll get your pain tonic,” she says, eyes downcast. “Meet you at the door downstairs?”

You go, let her take her moment alone, and lace your boots back on as you wait for her. Your wrist twinges when you tug on the laces. What a mess, you think.

Jane brings you the pain tonic and you juggle it with the journals until you have a good way to carry it all. You wish your friend goodbye and start on home, trying not to feel like there was a better way to talk to Jane about Dirk.


	6. Chapter 6

Dirk knocks on your back door while you’re surveying your kitchen. You go to let him in, glad for the diversion.

“Hi,” you say, smiling as he ducks through the doorway.

“Hey.” He catches sight of your arm and the lightness in his expression turns to a frown instantly. “Are you hurt?”

You pretend-wince and hold your wrist up. “Just a sprain!” you assure him. “Had my head in the clouds this morning and slipped. It’ll heal up soon enough. The real trick is trying to make dinner with a bum wrist.”

“It hurts?” Dirk snags your wrist as soon as you latch the door proper. He examines it as if he can see through the bandaging and get a gander at all that’s under your skin. Well. Maybe he can.

“A bit,” you admit. “But my friend Jane gave me a tonic for that.”

“Have you taken it?”

You shake your head. “I’m supposed to have it with dinner, and I expect it may make me sleepy.”

“You shouldn’t be cooking, you’ll only strain it further,” Dirk asserts.

You laugh. “What, how will I eat, then? Or are you proposing that you act as chef for the night? Do you ever know how to cook, oh fair prince?”

The tip of his tail twitches irritably. “I can cook,” he says. “I’ll make us something.”

 _This is going to be hilarious_ , you think uncharitably. Aloud, you say, “Well then, be my guest.”

You situate yourself at your dining table as Dirk appraises the kitchen with a level of determination that you think would be comparable to a boat captain preparing for a particularly dangerous voyage. Before he arrived, you’d already set out a collection of vegetables that you’d been planning on cooking, and Dirk picks up a potato to examine it.

“You don’t have to use those if you don’t want,” you say helpfully. “Or, you can, whichever.”

Dirk sets the potato down delicately and opens a drawer. It’s the drawer with all the utensils for baking that you never use. He shuts it again and opens the next one.

“That’s the knives,” you offer.

“I see that,” Dirk responds dryly. He opens the next drawer and finds your eating utensils. You cross your ankles and lean back in your chair. Next he finds your pots and pans, then the cupboard with the rest of the food you keep up here. He prods at the stove. You think he’s unaware of how dubiously he’s regarding it.

“Alright,” he says finally. “These knives, are they steel?”

“Yes, why?” The answer occurs to you before he can tell you. “Oh, dagnabbit. Iron.”

“Yeah,” Dirk says. “Do you have a pair of gloves I can borrow?”

You eye his long-fingered, slender hands. “Yes, not sure they’ll fit. They’re in the pocket of my coat by the front door.”

Dirk fetches the gloves. You were right: they’re a little big on him, but they serve their function to cover his hands well enough for him to touch steel. Between the gloves, bare chest, and slightly ruffled skirt, your elegant fae husband looks a tad silly.

He points a knife at you from his post in front of the counter. “Stop laughing.”

“I’m not laughing!” you protest, biting down a grin.

He sends you a look of suspicion — mock suspicion, you think. “I’m watching you,” he warns. He turns the oven on after fiddling with the dials for a few moments before turning to inspect your vegetables.

“Use a cutting board,” you interject when he reaches for one.

He waves you off, gets a cutting board out, and begins cutting up the vegetables and potatoes. It’s possible you were a little harsh on him. He handles the knife well and cuts in surprisingly even slices.

“What are you making us?” you ask, mostly to fill the silence.

“These, roasted, unless you have a different request,” he says. “Do you have any mushrooms?”

“There should be some in the pantry,” you say. “And that sound just lovely.”

Dirk chops up all the vegetables neatly, digs out the mushrooms and washes them before slicing them thinly as well. He digs out one of your big pans that does well in the oven and then stands there silently, apparently engaged in some sort of staring contest with your spice rack.

“Salt,” you suggest.

“Yes, I know to use salt, obviously,” Dirk says testily. He picks up the salt, then sets it down again and goes back to the pantry for cooking oil. You bite down your laughter just in time to put on your best innocent look when he glances back over at you.

Dirk gets the ingredients slicked up without necessitating further commentary from you, adds salt and pepper and then frowns some more at the spices.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Help.”

“Rosemary and thyme, always good,” you say immediately. “A few cloves of garlic and a splash of vinegar, if that strikes your fancy.”

“Got it, good idea,” he mutters. “I mean, thanks.” He finds the spices you indicated easily enough, crushes a few cloves with the flat of the knife (and definitely getting garlic juice on your gloves), and mixes it all together with the vinegar in the flat-bottomed pan. He gets it in the oven with no more fuss, peels the gloves off, and looks at you hopefully.

“Very well done,” you say at once. “Impressive work.”

“Hush up,” he grumbles, but looks pleased. He takes a seat across from you and slides you your gloves back. “How was your day?”

“Oh, you know,” you say. “Got a bit derailed with the whole bump in the road debacle.” You wiggle the fingers of the bad wrist meaningfully. “But I saw my friend, got some work done this morning, so it wasn’t a waste. Yourself? Do you have princely duties you have to attend to during the day?”

“The most ‘princely duties’ I do is showing up once a year for ceremonies and reminding everyone once in a while that I have the official capacity to kick all their asses,” Dirk says with a snort. “We’re not so official about royalty. And besides, time passes differently there. I’ve not been home much at all, not for long stretches of time anyway.”

“Huh,” you say, interest piqued. “How’s it different? Slower, right? You hear tales of folks going in and coming out years later, thinking only a month or two has passed.”

“Mm, slower is… close, not quite accurate,” Dirk says. “I would say that it’s more… time passes, but it’s in such a different way than how time passes here, that it becomes incomparable.”

“Like the seasons?” you ask.

“That’s part of it,” he agrees. One of his hooves nudges you under the table, you think unintentionally. You immediately nudge it back. One of his ears flicks, but beyond that he doesn’t react. “Rather than how it works for us, your seasons progress chronologically, right?”

“Yes,” you agree. “If I stayed plunked down in this exact spot for a year, I’ll see each season roll past.”

He nods. “For us, the seasons are geographic. I live in Autumn very literally. It is always the season of fall at my home.”

“That was my understanding of it, yes,” you agree. “But time still progresses for you, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” Dirk nudges you under the table again. “But when you pass back and forth through the gateway, you find that time is running differently.”

“So then…” You try to wrap your mind around it. “You really aren’t missing much, are you? In Autumn? Because the time you spend here takes less time over there.”

“That’s right,” he agrees. You push back against his leg, right above where the hoof begins. You know his skin there is fuzzy, even if you can’t feel it through your socks. “Is kicking your husband under the table some previously unheard of human courting ritual?”

You laugh. “Not really. It’s considered playful, I suppose. Flirty.”

“I see.” Dirk taps your foot with the tip of his hoof. You yank your foot back and then press it flat against his, trying to trap him.

He laughs, and you count it as a win for yourself. You reach across the table with your good hand and catch his, winding your fingers together.

“I should stir our dinner,” he says, making no move to pull away.

“That sounds like a good idea,” you agree. “I should go fetch the tonic.”

You hold onto his hand for another long moment, not wanting to get up, but then finally force yourself up. You put weight on the bad wrist without thinking and hiss in pain. Dirk watches, concerned, as you hold it stiff and rub it through the bandage.

“I’m fine,” you say in response to his unasked question. “Just aches. The tonic will help.”

You fetch your medicine while Dirk checks the food. He pronounces it needing a few more minutes to fully cook through and you sit and chat quietly again until it’s done. You sit patiently at his insistence as he sets out dishes and serves up your meal.

Dirk steals a sidelong look at you as you take your first bite. It’s pretty good, all things considered. Maybe needs a touch more garlic. You flash him a smile and he seems to relax.

“It’s good,” you tell him. “Thanks for cooking.”

“You’re very welcome,” he says, doing his tiny smile thing again.

You eat your dinners. Your wrist is bothering you, though, and you pause partway through the meal to drink the tonic, reasoning there was enough in your stomach by that point for it to work. Dirk still looks a little concerned, and when you’re done eating he has you keep sitting while he cleans up.

“I’m still surprised you can cook — and clean, too!” you tell him. “Maybe it’s easier in Autumn, but with human… human implements, and appliances, you’re doing very well. Is my house weird to you? Is it boring and unmagical?”

“It’s neither,” he says, turning the sink on. “I like your house.”

“Oh, good,” you say, resting your head on your hand. You think the tonic’s doing something to your head. You feel like if you stood up, your body might float right off away from your feet. “Don’t forget to use soap.”

“Soap, right,” Dirk says. “Where do you keep that.”

“Under the sink,” you say. His grip slides off the handle to the cabinet and he has to try his hands off to get it open. “Buck up, Strider, it’s just a kitchen.” You laugh at your own, admittedly terrible, joke. “Ha, I called you Strider. Diiiirk. Dirklin.”

“A human kitchen is nothing I can't handle, Jake English.” Dirk turns the water back on, this time with the addition of soap on the washrag, and begins scrubbing the plates clean.

You shudder when he uses your name. “Urgh, don't do that, feels like someone's dancing over my grave with two left feet.”

“Oh, so my name’s fair game, but yours isn't?” Dirk isn’t looking at you, occupied with his cleaning, but you can hear that he’s teasing you in his voice.

“That’s right,” you say. A thought occurs to you about names, and you muse for a second before speaking again. “Do faeries ever take each other's names when they marry?”

“No,” Dirk says, pitched to be heard over the running water when he turns it on again. “Names are precious.”

“Huh. See, because here I might be Jake Strider. Or you Dirk English. Those ring alright, don't you think? ‘Spose you already gave me the ring, though.”

“I think that medicine did a number on you.”

You laugh. “Mayhaps. I feel a bit loosey goosey.”

“Just stay put,” he tells you. “I’ll be done in just a moment.”

You let him finish up, humming idly to yourself in the meantime. Dirk’s hand, slightly damp still, startles you when it touches your arm.

“Oh,” you say, blinking up at his (very tall) height. “Hello, dear.”

“Hello to you, too,” he says. “Can you stand for me, Jake?”

You find that you can indeed stand without floating off to bump the ceiling. Perhaps that has to do with Dirk’s hands steadying you under either elbow when you sway into him. Your balance has gone all funky, and you keep staggering, losing your footing over invisible tripwires. Dirk keeps you upright and on track, leads you over to the couch without falling for the second time in one day.

“Here,” he says, settling you on the couch beside him. You lean into his side. “Jake? Hey. I think I can help speed up the healing of your wrist. Will you let me do that?”

“Sure,” you say through a sudden yawn. “Sounds downright… downright, um… dandy. Do as you please.”

Dirk takes your wrist silently, and through the fog you feel… him. Doing something. The feeling of him radiates through your whole body, concentrated in your wrist like he’d turned your bones and muscles and all the other working parts beneath the skin to pure, undistilled Dirk. It feels a little like the marriage bond, you decide, but different. The bond is like how curling up next to a fireplace feels. Dirk is quieter, like the the warm, golden smell of crunching of fallen leaves underfoot.

“It's too soon for me to like you this much,” you mumble, eyelids heavy and head resting against his shoulder. “What’re you doing to me.”

You've already drifted too far into sleep to hear his reply properly, but you feel the kiss he presses to your forehead as you sink away into slumber.

 

* * *

 

You wake up in bed with no memory of how you arrived there. Dirk is a warm, solid presence against your back, and his tail is draped over your hips in a way that you’re already becoming accustomed to.

It's comfortable, and you still feel sleep-fogged and drowsy. You let yourself luxuriate in the feeling for a while longer, eyes shut. Dirk is still asleep, you think, from how slow and steadily he's breathing. You curl an arm under his tail and snuggle it closer to your chest like a long fluffy pillow.

“Good morning,” Dirk says softly into your neck, voice sleep-rough.

Oops. Caught. “Morning,” you say, reluctantly opening your eyes and squinting at your bedroom, bathed in early morning light.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. He shifts and wraps his arm around you more tightly, holding you against his chest.

You yawn widely, jaw cracking. “Better? Better, yes. I was a hell of a mess last night, wasn't I.”

“A bit,” Dirk says, a trace of amusement creeping into his voice. “I think your medicine was stronger than you expected.”

“No frigging kidding,” you mutter, trying to pick through your blurry memories of the previous night. You free up your injured wrist from where it had been protectively tucked against your chest and try to stretch it, gingerly. To your surprise, it throbs with only a faint pulse of pain, hardly anything at all. “Did you do something to my wrist?”

“Mmhm,” Dirk says. “You said I could try to speed up the healing.”

You...think you remember that, faintly. Something warm, a sweet smell like a forest in your nose and throat, something achingly gentle.

“Well, it worked,” you say, still moving your wrist around and marveling at how little it hurts. “I feel like I'm a week on the mend instead of just one night.”

“I can do more healing before I go,” he offers. “I bet I can get it fully healed.”

“That would be lovely,” you say. “Thank you.”

He kisses the back of your head, affectionate, before pulling away and sitting up. You roll over onto your back and watch him stretch, arching his back and yawning. If it weren't for the antlers and the soft tail still draped across you, he could be an ordinary human man.

You reach over and touch the spots in his back. He's colored like a deer all over, the soft fuzzy layer of fur, hard to see but easily noticed once you'd touched his skin, being the same color scheme as his true fur when he’s in deer form.

“Are these fawn spots?” you ask, voicing a question you’d been puzzling over. “You're not that young, are you?” The spots are the same texture as the rest of him, but lighter, the same near-white as his hair.

He laughs. “No, I'm not that young. Well, to another fae, I'm young, but I'm considered an adult even there. It's just the kind of deer I am. We have spotted backs throughout our whole lives.”

“Interesting,” you say. Dirk makes no move to discourage your touching, just patiently lets you explore him. “You have them on your shoulders, too, though.”

He shrugs his aforementioned shoulders. “I'm not all deer.”

You sit up and he turns to face you, calm and expectant. You reach out and touch the tiny dots on his cheeks, too. “I thought these were freckles at first,” you say. “But they're light, not dark.”

“More of the same spots,” he agrees, eyes going heavy-lidded when your fingertips linger just below his right eye.

You want to kiss him, but hesitate. This has all happened so fast, hasn't it? You feel like you've known him all your life, you're so comfortable at his side. He's not supposed to feel safe to you. You're not supposed to sleep curled up in his arms and spill whatever comes into your head while drugged with painkillers. Your gran would be raising her eyebrows and giving you a tongue-lashing if she could see you right now.

“Jake?” Dirk asks, voice worried. You realize you've gone still, staring at him while you were thinking.

“They're fetching, your spots,” you tell him, trying to distract him from your silence. “You could be a real heartbreaker, face like that.”

“I sincerely hope I won't be,” he says cautiously. He reaches up and takes your hand from his face, links your fingers together and kisses your knuckles, watching your expression all the while.

You try to force a smile, but you can tell it looks false. “Do you want breakfast?” you ask. “I think I still have some of those berries you brought me.”

“If it pleases you,” he says. “Though, wait a moment. I just remembered, I brought you another gift. I didn't give it to you last night because I was occupied by getting you fed and put to bed.” He kicks free of the blankets and climbs out of bed. You realize belatedly that he's naked and avert your eyes to the blankets, unaccountably embarrassed despite having had him naked in your bedroom before this.

Dirk finds his skirt, abandoned at the foot of your bed. It rattles when he lifts it, and he reaches into one of the pockets and pulls out a pair of bracelets.

“For you, if you like them.” Dirk comes back around to your side of the bed to show you. They're gold, like your ring, but… You touch them curiously.

“Is this wood?” you ask.

Dirk nods. “Maple, set into gold.” He shows you where the clasp is and snaps one onto your wrist. It's beautiful, and comes to rest around your arm, not so tight that it pinches, but tight enough that it won't come off over your hand. You hold out your other arm, but he shakes his head. “Wear them on the same arm until the other is healed.” He clasps the other one on below the first.

“They're beautiful,” you say.

They are beautiful. They look like something a faerie princess would wear. You're neither of those things, but you trace the circumference of the bracelets, noting the loops set into the metal as decoration. One of them functions as the clasp. You assume the other two are to balance out the aesthetics.

“This is…” You look up at Dirk’s nervous anticipation of your reaction. “Thank you,” you say in lieu of trying to capture all the mixed-up, confusing feelings swirling in you.

“You're very welcome,” Dirk says, seeming relieved.

You touch the bracelets one last time before saying, “Well, breakfast, then?”

Dirk nods. The two of you get dressed and head downstairs. You're still quiet, but try to recapture some of your cheer as you get out the berries and some of your homemade bread for breakfast.

You eat one-handed, trying to keep enough concentration not to miss your mouth as Dirk pours more of his healing magic into your wrist. It does something strange to your senses, making a bite of bread taste like sweet honey and pine needles. You know it should feel invasive, like a stranger trying to creep their way into your body through your arm, but it doesn't. It feels like an embrace from the inside-out. Dirk’s brow is furrowed adorably as he concentrates. When he finally lets you go, you can move your wrist and put weight on it with only the most distant flicker of hurt.

“All fixed,” you pronounce. “Magic sure is a handy trick, isn't it?”

“It helps,” Dirk agrees, stealing a few of your berries.

You feel steadier with food in your stomach, and lean to kiss his cheek with a smacking sound. Dirk ducks his head, ears twitching. You think you flustered him, and smile to yourself.

“I should go,” he says when you're putting the dishes away.

“Alright,” you say, ignoring the pang in you at the words. “I'll see you tonight!”

“You will,” he agrees. His ears quiver again when you lean up to kiss him goodbye, and the tip of his tail twitches.

You watch him retreat into the woods and bite down a sigh. One of these days, you think, you'd like to get him to stay and have him help you in the garden that he first saw you in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') i love them


	7. Chapter 7

Despite the rude wake-up call of spraining your wrist, you continue to daydream in the days that follow. You spend your mornings while you tend to the garden imagining what Dirk’s house might look like, if he has some sort of craft bench where he makes his jewelry. You let yourself laze about, thinking of the delicate, soft fur on Dirk’s ears. You act like a moon-eyed teenager with a crush, and try to avoid running into your neighbors because of a nagging feeling that it must be written all over your face.

You dig out a little bottle from your nightstand, only half-full but not recently used, and… put it to use.

Dirk likes looking at you. He certainly likes touching you. You’re bold enough to admit, at least to yourself, that you like that. You’ve never quite wanted someone like this. Wanting, sure, in general, is no stranger to you. But sometimes when you look at Dirk, laid out and asleep in your bed each morning, you want to crawl on top of him and make him devour you.

So, you give yourself over to your imaginings, and test your body’s willingness to be opened. You really don’t need many fingers inside yourself for the stretch to burn in a way that’s just fucking perfect, and if you cry out your husband’s name into your pillow, well. Nobody’s around to hear you. No harm done, all’s well, and all that.

During one of your nights together, Dirk sucks you off again, touches your ass, but doesn’t press further. You’re pretty damn sure he’d want you, if you offered. He said as much before, didn’t he? And yet it doesn’t come up again, not quite so easily, and you find that you’re nervous to bring it up.

This would be much easier if he’d just take what you’re more than willing to offer, but Dirk seems as though he might be… waiting for an indication from you? An open statement that you want more from him, with him? You don’t know.

It’s terribly inconvenient.

Your evenings have fallen into a bit of a routine. Dinner, together, often with some sort of food that Dirk brings to add to your table. Wild greens you’ve never seen before, berries, often mushrooms. One time, fresh-baked bread, so soft that it melted in your mouth. It could hardly be compared to bread except for its resemblance.

He brings you more jewelry. An armband that fits neatly around your bicep. Another ring, this time small, meant for your pinky finger, and made solely of smooth wood. A set of anklets, loose bangles that you take to wearing when you’re at home. You like the sound they make as you move around in the evenings. Dirk likes it, too, you can tell, or maybe he just likes to see you wearing his gifts.

After dinner, you wash up, talk to each other about your days. You learn that Dirk is often annoyed with the daily fussings of his fae companions. He learns that your grandma taught you everything you know about gardening. Then, the two of you might have a glass of wine, retire to the couch. You’ll bank up the fire for the night, then sit close to his side.

Most nights, you sleep together. Well, no. Every night you _sleep_ together. But most of the time, you get a bit handsy with each other before any bona fide sleeping occurs.

On one such night, you resolve to find a way to express to Dirk that you’d really like it if he fucked you, that would be just the cherry on the cake.

You start, as you often do, with kissing. His ears have been fascinating you lately, the way they quiver when he’s embarrassed or pleased. They’re much more delicate than you thought when you first saw him, and he shudders when you run the tip of your tongue up the length up the lower edge of one ear.

His earrings are warm when you touch your lips to them, heated by his body, you assume. You suck the very tip of his ear into your mouth, and he groans. Your dick twitches in your pants at the sound of his voice.

“Dirk,” you say in a very low tone, right into his ear. It twitches, damp edge brushing across your cheek.

He has an arm wrapped tight around your back, and you take it as a good excuse to swing a leg over his lap so that you’re straddling him. His eyes are dark, pupils wide, and he leans up to kiss you at once, tongue hot in your mouth. You kiss him back for all you’re worth, leaning down against him and panting when you get a moment to catch your breath.

“Dirk,” you continue, voice rough. “I… There’s something I want to show you. Something I want.”

“Yes?” he murmurs, leaning in to nuzzle your jaw. You suck in a breath harshly when he nips your skin lightly.

“I, I want.” It’s hard to think like this. You feel dizzy from how he’s holding you, how it makes you feel like you could close your eyes and let everything else in the world fall away. “You should take me to bed.”

He leans back, and you feel momentarily bereft, but then instead he catches your under each thigh. “Hold on, then,” he says, and you wrap your arms around his neck as he stands, picking you up with him.

You loop your legs around his waist for extra security and hold on. He carries you easily up the stairs, hooves clicking against the wood. You duck your head into his neck, a nervous thrill running down your spine.

Once in your bedroom, Dirk kneels down on the bed and lays you out on your back. You reach up for him immediately, try to pull him down over you. He resists for the moment, though you can see that he’s hard.

“There was something you wanted,” he prompts.

You flush to the tips of your ears but nod. Sitting up, you undo a few buttons on your shirt and then pull it off over your head to drop on the floor, then snag the bottle you left out on the nightstand as an ultimatum to yourself.

Dirk takes it from your hand without prompting. “You want me to use this?” he asks. When you meet his eyes, you find him looking at you with such heat that you can’t look away, caught like a butterfly pinned to a board.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

Dirk threads his fingers into your hair and kisses you, hard and sloppy and full of desire. It’s exactly what you wanted.

“Lie back, then,” Dirk says when he pulls back, and presses his fingers to your chest until you flop back again. He kicks his skirt off and then sets the bottle aside for the moment. His fingers make quick work of opening your pants, but he ignores your dick for the moment and works the rest of your clothes off of you, first.

He picks up the bottle and you lick your lips. His dick is long, longer than a human’s, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want it in you. You do, you really do.

Dirk surprises you by not going directly for what you’re offering him. He tips some of the oil onto his palm and then restoppers the bottle. Rather than pressing his fingers to your hole, he wraps his hand around your dick. The slide of his hand is sublime, coating your dick in the oil as he works you over, and your breathing goes tight and shaky, legs tensing.

You feel hot all over, prickling sweat on your back. Your toes curl against the blankets and you reach up and grab onto one of Dirk’s arms, needing to touch him, to have something to hold on to. He bends to kiss you as he strokes you, grip just tight enough to make you moan into his mouth. You feel dizzy, lightheaded, and turn your face away so you can gasp for breath.

“Gorgeous,” Dirk says in your ear, and you hitch up into his grip. He squeezes the tip of your dick and, frankly, you don’t need much encouragement at all to start rocking your hips into his hand.

He leans back up and runs experimental fingers over your chest, thumbing a nipple until you squirm under the touch. His eyes are like an open flame, hard to look at but too transfixing to look away from. You feel like a desperate mess, falling apart under his hands while you haven’t so much as touched him yet. When you try to reach a hand to his dick, though, he bats you away.

“You first,” he says, and the promise of that makes you groan.

It’s almost a relief when he moves his hand from your dick to snag the bottle again. You’re too sensitive, too close to the edge so soon. The anticipation has been working you up for the whole day. Dirk’s fingers, when they return, have more oil on them. He rests them against your balls, a small trickle of oil sliding agonizingly slowly down to drip off.

You squirm again, but Dirk does nothing, just watching you intently. “Please,” you manage, and he nods, slides his fingers down to where you’re sensitive and more than ready for him.

He smears the oil from one of his fingers around your hole in a quick circle, slicking you up, then wastes no more time and presses one in. You take him to the second knuckle before he stops, and shit, _shit_ , it takes everything you have not to dissolve into a babbling mess.

“More?” he asks.

You squeeze your eyes shut but open them again immediately, bereft without the intensity of his gaze. “Yes, more,” you say.

He takes his time, tugging at the sensitive rim until you whine, rocking first one and then two fingers in and out of you. You brace your heels on the bed and move with him, wanting it, consumed by the steady pressure. Dirk shifts his fingers in you and presses his thumb above where his fingers are buried in you, below your balls, and rubs in a circle. Oh, oh gods. You fist your hands in the blankets and moan incoherently. He continues to rub that spot with his thumb, pressing firmly as he spreads his fingers in you.

You feel like you’re melting. The pleasure is exquisite, less like a shock to the system and more like a slow burn all through you. And then Dirk curls his fingers in you, rubs the pads of them over the spot that you’ve found before during your explorations from the inside as well. It’s a good thing you’re too wrapped up in the feeling to feel embarrassed, because you’re making a nice assortment of strangled, desperate noises.

“You like that?” Dirk asks, still with his gaze fixed on you.

 _“ _Y_ es_, gods, it’s — it’s so damn good. Dirk, fucking — hell’s bells, please.” You’re so hard that it aches, but you need more to be able to come.

“No worries,” he says. “I’ve got you.” He gets his other hand around your dick again and you just about downright yelp. You reach for him again, catch a hand around his neck and spread your legs farther so he has best access.

You’re too far gone to think, whimper when he strokes you just right and let the feeling pour through you like an avalanche. You think you just about feel it in your _hair_ when you come, the tingling spreading all over your body as you writhe against your blankets. Dirk works you through it without hesitation, wringing your orgasm out of you until you’re shaking. Your heart is hammering in your ears so hard that you can hardly hear over it for a moment.

Dirk’s waiting for you when you finally catch your breath from where it made a mad dash for the hills. He’s pulled his fingers out of you and has his hands resting on your thighs, keeping them apart.

“You really know how to give it to a guy,” you finally manage.

“Do I?” Dirk asks. “How can you be sure, when I haven’t given it to you yet.” He’s still hard. Waiting for you to be ready again.

“You raise a good point,” you say. Your legs tremble when you try to lift them to hook over his back and you blow out an exasperated breath.

“Here,” Dirk murmurs, noticing your troubles. He reaches up past you to snag the other pillow — his pillow. “Would it be easier on your stomach?”

You shake your head and lift up for him. He slides the pillow neatly under your lower back and ass and lets you settle on top of it. His fingers, when they come to rest on your stomach, are still oil-slick.

The crawling feeling of those long, moving hairs on his dick brings you the rest of the way back down as his dick nestles neatly against your hole. “If you’re ready,” he says — politely, damn him.

“Absotively,” you respond, and grin at him, half a challenge. “Or — you’re sure it’s alright, your friendliness hairs? They’ll be alright, you know, inside?”

“My what?” Dirk’s nose wrinkles in confusion. It’s — it’s rather cute.

“Your, you know.” You wave vaguely at his crotch.

Dirk splutters out a laugh. “Do you mean the cilia?”

“If that’s the fancy word for the amiable hair you’ve got going on down there,” you retort.

“It’s not technically hair, it’s…” He trails off and shakes his head. “Never mind, it doesn’t actually matter. Yes. They’ll be fine inside you.” He raises an eyebrow and rolls his hips pointedly.

“Well,” you say. “Carry on, then.”

He shakes his head, looking amused still, and drops a hand between you to keep himself lined up. He gets the flushed pink tip in and presses forward slowly, letting you breathe through it. Your frigging deer husband’s dick is _long_ , and you flex your toes while you work to keep yourself relaxed. It tickles a bit, the way the hairs — fine, the _cilia_ catch against your hole before being pulled flat.

You’re sensitive as hell when he rubs across that bump and you jerk under him, the feeling right on the line between pain and pleasure. Dirk holds you steady and presses in farther, relentless, until his hips bump your ass and you smack a palm against his chest, gasping.

He gives you your minute to adjust. He’s not thick, but he’s worked his way so deep that you feel filled to the brim anyway. The cilia squirm inside you in a motion that’s totally alien, pressing out against your walls. You breathe. Dirk shifts his hips, builds the motion to a slow grind that keeps him fucked in so deep that you almost want to shout. The cilia not inside you cling to your rim, tugging against it. It’s so much, but you want it. Gods, you want it.

“More?” Dirk asks.

You don’t know, you’re already dizzy all over again, on the edge of too sensitive. But you do want more, anything he’ll give you, so you nod. He moves over you, comes down to brace on his elbows. You wrap your arms around his back immediately, hold him against you so you can feel his whole body move when he slides out to thrust in again.

You shudder. Dirk makes a noise of clear pleasure that sings through you like a spark. He rolls his dick into you again, and again. His dick and the cilia work you more and more open until the feeling of pressure is gone and you’re left with just a slick, steady slide. You jolt from time to time when he hits you where you’re too sensitive, but for the most part the feeling just dies down to a feeling of being open, of being full, and of being moved by the force of another’s body.

It’s better than you ever imagined.

You don’t get more than lazily half-hard again, just fold yourself up against him and let him move. He tucks his face in beside your neck and breathes harshly, occasionally pausing to kiss the side of your face. You feel small and strangely safe below him, holding him and being held. You feel… cared for. Each time Dirk presses his lips to your skin you almost want to curl up and hide from the affection of it. You almost feel loved.

That thought is too much, and you shut your eyes and find his tail with your foot, hook it over your ankle so that the softness of it drags over your skin as he moves. The short fur on his back under your hands is soft, and you tilt your forehead against his shoulder and sink so deep into the feeling that you stop thinking at all.

Eventually, you’re peripherally aware of Dirk huffing out a harsh breath, of his dick twitching inside of you. You redouble your grip on him and hum vaguely when he noses your neck inquiringly.

“Hey,” he says softly in your ear.

You force yourself back to the surface. “Hi,” you say, reluctantly letting go.

He doesn’t go far, just carefully slides out of you and nudges your legs back together. You’re grateful for that, actually, come to think of it. One of your hips is starting to ache in a way that’s threatening to cramp. He reclaims the pillow from under your ass and then tugs the blankets down. You wiggle semi-helpfully and he drags the blankets out from under your legs and then pulls them over the two of you.

“Dirk,” you say, not sure what you want, only that there’s something you need from him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers. He shifts back over you, kisses your mouth slowly, softly. He kisses your jaw, your neck, which makes you shiver from the brush of his fur over your skin. He kisses your cheek, then the very tip of your nose. You open your eyes to find mischief in his.

“What’s got you all lit up?” you accuse.

Dirk shakes his head, still looking like he’s fighting down a smile. He kisses your mouth again, and this time you actually kiss back, cup his neck and let the lazy, contented kisses soothe you again.

Eventually Dirk pulls back, and rolls you with him until he can flop down on his back. You settle on his chest and resist the impulse to rub your face against the fuzziness. His tail sneaks over to curl around your waist.

“Is something the matter?” he asks when you go quiet again.

You shake your head, then contradict yourself by speaking. “You’ve been very kind to me.”

“Should I have been cruel?” Dirk asks, sounding a trifle confused.

“No, no. Just.” You’re so terrible with words. “I didn’t… expect it. I didn’t expect to feel so…”

You trail off, feeling lost. Dirk’s hands against your back are still a little bit sticky with oil.

“I want you to feel cared for,” he says, when you fail to continue. “I care about you very much, Jake. I want you to be sure of that, no matter what. I want to give you whatever you need.”

You don’t know how you managed to stumble into the lap of this man without even trying. You don’t know if you deserve him. But you do want him so terribly, so you hope to all the gods you’ve ever heard of that he continues to want to keep you.

“I don’t know if… if I deserve that,” you finally bring yourself to say.

Dirk considers that quietly for a moment. “It doesn’t matter if you deserve it,” he says at last. “You’re my husband, and I’ll give it all to you anyway.”

He lets you keep hiding against his chest, and runs his fingers through your hair gently until you finally drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're gonna be getting progressively kinkier from here on out, just an fyi ;)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll do kink content warnings in endnotes, cool?

The next gift Dirk brings you: a pair of hoop earrings, metal for the bar meant to go through the lobe, and wood for the actual hoop.

They’re lovely, understated but beautiful. You’d never thought of yourself as someone who would like jewelry, had rarely noticed it on other people, but Dirk’s gifts catch your attention utterly. Maybe, in part, because of how you catch him watching you when you wear them.

But.

“My ears aren’t pierced,” you blurt out, holding the earrings carefully in the palm of your hand.

Dirk nods. “I know. I noticed. So I can take them back, if you’re not interested. But you did seem to like mine.”

You do like his earrings, though mostly you like his ears, how they’re delicate and soft and give away where his attention lays even if he’s pretending to be distracted. How a tremor runs through them when he’s flustered.

Dirk is waiting for your answer. You swallow, throat dry. “I can ask around, see who does piercings around here,” you say. “Are these the sort you can wear straight-off, after getting a poke to the earlobe?”

“Not typically,” he says. “But, if you really do want, I have a needle at home that I can bring tomorrow night. It’ll heal you more quickly.” He tilts his head until he captures your gaze. “I won’t be offended if you’d rather not.”

You close your hand over the earrings without thinking, even though Dirk has made no move to take them back. “No,” you say quickly. “I mean, yes. Please bring your needle, if you don’t mind.”

The pleased way Dirk looks at your words sends a lazy spark right down to your bones, and you set the earrings carefully on the windowsill, where you’ll see them all day tomorrow and remember what he’s promised you.

 

* * *

 

He brings his piercing kit in a rolled up piece of cloth the next night. You don’t attend to it right away, as you’ve got dinner set out, not wanting it to get cold. Your eyes keep straying to where he set the cloth down beside the earrings, still on the windowsill above the sink. Dirk catches you looking.

“Nervous?” he asks in a sly sort of way, teasing.

“Of course not,” you say.

“There’s no shame if you are.” Dirk takes a sip of his soup, eyes on your face. “I knew a kid who was so scared of needles that she’d cry if anything even as small as sewing was mentioned.”

“I’m not scared of any gosh damned needles,” you say, nettled. “Have at me, _Strider_ , I won’t flinch.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Whatever you say, English,” he replies. His tail is draped over your bare feet, and you can feel it twitching with suppressed amusement against your ankle.

You eat the rest of your dinner with the conviction to not seem even a little scared when he brings out the needle brewing inside you. Dirk still seems amused, but he lets it drop, spins you some yarn about a mishap from his day and a young fae child that fell from the treetops onto his roof. Uninjured, he assures you, but it had been a game and a half dealing with a fae parent trying to talk themself around taking the inevitable debt for disturbing him. You’re suitably entertained by his tale, and apply yourself to not looking back over at the earrings again.

At least, until dinner is over. You can sneak glances at them while you do the washing up. Dirk snags his little cloth kit and sets himself up while you clean the dishes. You can’t see what he’s doing, with him hidden behind you. It sends a thrill down your nerves.

 _I’m not afraid of a little pinch of pain_ , you tell yourself firmly, then dry your hands. You pick up the hoops delicately and go to see what he’s doing.

What he’s doing, it turns out, has involved rearranging your furniture. Dirk has pulled over a little table you use to rest your tea on beside your armchair. He’s unrolled his little cloth setup atop it. There’s less items in it than you half-expected. Just what looks like a cork from a wine bottle, what looks like a funny little cloth, and a long, slender needle made out of what looks like glass all laid out.

Your husband is perched on the arm of the chair. “Sit, if you would,” he invites.

You sit. His leg presses against your arm. “How’s this all go, then?” you ask.

He picks up the needle and offers it to you for inspection. It’s mostly clear, hollow on one end, tipped on either side in a different color of glass like a little spill of turquoise. Pretty, if you ignore the very sharp tip.

You hand it back and he picks up the little cloth. “This sanitizes it,” he explains. “This cloth cleans everything it touches from any trace of contamination — mundane contamination, that is. Magic it leaves alone.” He draws the needle through the cloth carefully, wrapping it up fully and rubbing it down. “I’ll do the earrings next, and I’ve done my hands already, but if you would do your hands?”

“Sure thing,” you say, and gingerly accept the cloth when he hands it to you. The fabric is strangely cold to the touch, like running your hands through chilled water. You hold the needle in the palm of your hand in exchange for the earrings and cloth, one of which gets set down on the table and the other of which Dirk gives the same thorough cleaning to.

“The cork,” he says, “is to have a firm surface to push the needle against.” He rubs it in the cloth as well, rolls it between his hands. “Are you ready?” he asks. “It’ll pinch, just a bit of pain, but the needle is enchanted so that it heals nearly instantly. You’ll barely feel anything.”

You put on your best brave face. “I’m ready,” you tell him.

Dirk slides off his perch. He’s very tall like this, bent down over you. “Look straight ahead,” he directs you. He wipes your ear down with the cloth, and then you feel him press the cork to the back of your ear. “Deep breath in,” he tells you in a low voice.

You inhale.

“And out.”

As you exhale, he pushes the needle through your earlobe. It does hurt, a sharp pinch, and your ear floods with heat. The pain recedes quickly, but the heat doesn’t. Dirk sets the cork down, and then you hear the rattle of the earring against the needle. He pushes it through your ear steadily, and clicks the clasp of the hoop shut.

“One done,” he tells you, leaning back. He picks up his little cleaning cloth again and dabs at the back of your ear. It comes away with a bead of blood on it that shimmers and vanishes as it soaks into the cloth as if it was never there.

“Can I touch it?” you ask.

Dirk holds up a finger to stall your already-rising hands. “You can touch after I finish the other. I need you to hold still so they come out even.”

You drop your hands back into your lap. Dirk repeats the process on your other ear: wipes it down, braces it with the cork.

“Breathe in,” he says. You think you’re more ready this time, but when you breathe out the pinch makes you hiss out a little pained noise. Dirk makes a soothing sound as he sets the cork aside again and slides the earring into place with the hollow end of the needle.

He dabs up the little bit of blood again, clips the hoop shut, and leans back. “All done,” he says. “You did well.”

You try not to feel too guiltily pleased at the praise. Both of your ears feel flushed hot and slightly weighed down. You keep your hands in your lap for the moment, unsure. “Are they healed?” you ask.

He nods. “You’re good to go. You can touch now.”

You do so as Dirk rolls up his tools again. The hoops are smooth to the touch. Your ears feel hot, but not inflamed at all. The clasp is well-made, unlikely to break, you think, but easily opened and closed.

...Dirk is watching you play with them, intent. You still, a touch embarrassed.

“They look good on you,” he says. Oh. That’s what that look is: covetousness, bordering on avarice. “It’s a good color, the light wood. You’ll catch people’s eyes.”

“Would that bother you?” you ask uncertainly. “People looking?”

He sets the kit down with precision, and comes to stand in front of the chair. You have to tilt your head back to look him in the eyes. “Let them look all they want,” he says, then fists a hand in your hair to keep your head dragged back when he leans down to claim your lips.

The grip he has on your hair stings a bit, and you gasp. He takes full advantage of the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, sucks on yours and steals every breath you have away. You moan when he bites your lip and he takes that as invitation to climb into your lap, straddling you. His hold on your hair gentles, and he winds both hands through it to keep you still while he kisses the ever living daylights out of you.

You understand the unsaid second half of his sentence perfectly well. They can look, but Dirk is the only one who gets to touch you.

He breaks away from your mouth and ducks his head to the side to suck on your neck, hard, giving you an occasional nip from his teeth. “Shiiit,” you say, squirming from the feeling of his hot tongue licking over your stinging skin. You can’t move much, not with his knees pinning you in.

Then Dirk works his way up from your neck to run the very tip of his tongue experimentally along the line of your ear and you just about lose your damn mind.

“Dirk, Dirk, fuck, holy fucking smokes,” you gasp. He sucks your earlobe into his mouth, hoop and all, tugs very gently on it. You half want to pull your sensitive ear away, but his mouth seems to have found a direct line to your dick that he’s holding between his teeth and tugging on playfully. You try to roll your hips up, get some friction, but he just leans up farther over you.

He lets your earlobe go and gives a bite to the cartilage at the top of your ear instead. It hurts, and you groan.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he tells you. You try to shiver away from the words, but he just switches to your other ear, says it again, breath hot against your skin. “You _are_ , Jake. Could look at you all day.”

He runs his teeth down the outside of your ear, nips the skin right next to the piercing. Your hips twitch upwards fruitlessly again, and you run your hands up and down his sides, entreating.

“Shh, we’ll get there,” he tells you, pulling back. “What else of mine are you wearing? The ring? Both of them?”

“And the armband,” you pant out.

He groans. “What do you want next? More bracelets? You’d look good in necklaces, too.”

You shake your head. “I don’t — I don’t know, you choose.” You crane up towards him, needing more contact, and he obliges you, leaning in to kiss you again, scratching your scalp lightly. That feels good, too, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough, and he holds you on the precipice, not giving you more.

“You’re extraordinary,” he says between searing kisses. “I can’t believe…” He finally moves a hand from your hair to the buttons of your shirt and starts pulling them open. Ignoring your attempt to pull it off before he’s done, he gets them all open, smooths a hand up your chest, rubs one of your nipples until it’s stiff under his touch. You make a noise that’s very far from dignified.

“Please,” you say. “I need, let me do something.”

“Let you do something?” Dirk echoes, doing absolutely nothing to alleviate your situation.

“Anything, come on,” you plead. You get an idea, a clever idea you think, and reach up to wrap a hand around his dick.

The cilia fasten themselves to your hand at once, and he feels as stiff as you are. Dirk groans when you try to give him a good pull, and you feel very pleased with yourself for all of five seconds.

“Anything, I see,” Dirk says. “Here’s what you can do, then. You can switch with me. I’ll sit in this chair and you can kneel and suck me, how’s that sound.”

You make a noise somewhere between a moan and a strangled plea. Dirk takes ahold of your hips, pulls you up and back as he stands. He spins you around neatly, lets you go and sits back down. You stand there, briefly uncertain, until he spreads his legs pointedly and raises his eyebrows.

You kneel on your rug. His hand lands back in your hair, stroking just behind your ear. “Take the shirt off,” he says. “You can unbutton your pants, but then I want your hands up here, okay?”

“Alright,” you say with a nervous, anticipatory shiver. You shrug your shirt off onto the floor and undo the top buttons of your pants. It chafes less, giving yourself more room, and you bite down a noise from the brief touch of your fingers against yourself through your underpants.

“Hands,” Dirk says softly, and you give him your hands. He settles them on his hips.

You readjust so you can lean forward and stay balanced. He’s long — you won’t be able to take much of him in, and you’re rather unpracticed. You hesitantly lean in until your lips are just a breath away from him. The cilia react and curl towards you, brushing against your mouth and chin.

More out of curiosity than anything, you run your tongue across them to see how they respond. They cling to you immediately, not just trying to grasp onto your tongue, but caressing your lips as well. There’s no flavor to them, at least, and they’re thicker than actual hairs would be.

Dirk runs his hand through your hair reassuringly when you take a steadying breath. You start small, leaning in farther so that his dick brushes your cheek so you can press exploratory kisses down the length of him. The cilia find the crease of your lips and try to wiggle their way in, and you oblige them finally, running your tongue from base to tip. Dirk continues to pet your hair as you kiss the head of his dick.

He only said to keep your hands up with him, but…

You pull back just an inch to speak. “Can I use my hands?” you ask, sneaking a glance up at him.

The lust in the way he’s watching you kneel between his legs makes you dart your eyes back down immediately, a hot flush creeping down your neck. “Feel free,” he says. His tail flicks around, curls over the bottoms of your feet.

You wrap your hand around the base of his dick. The cilia curl around your fingers immediately, almost like an embrace. When you shift on your knees to get a better position, your dick rubs against the fabric of your underpants, nowhere near enough friction.

There’s just a hint of a bitter, musky taste when you run the flat of your tongue across his slit, not a disagreeable flavor. Dirk’s hips twitch just a little bit as you open your mouth further and take the first inch of him in, trying to remember to keep your teeth covered with your lips and tongue. You haven’t done this properly in years. He’s hot on your tongue, the texture strange with the covering of cilia. They tickle your lips as you see how deep you can get him before you choke.

You get a few solid inches into your mouth, trying to get your head around how different the texture is. The cilia squirm in your mouth distractingly, and you curl your tongue against his dick, trying to keep them to hold still.  

Breathing in shudderingly through your nose, you let him slide back out of your mouth with a pop. It’s definitely a dick, faeness and all, and though it’s thinner than yours it still has enough girth to stretch your mouth open. Your saliva clings between the strands of cilia, which is unexpectedly arousing.

“You alright?” Dirk asks. His voice has gotten rougher.

“Peachy keen,” you say, and take him in again. Keen, yes, you’re a bit keen. You try for a slow suck, this time, figuring out how to coordinate your mouth for this. Dirk groans when you take him a little deeper this time, backing off right when you feel the urge to gag starting to bat for your attention.

You pull off again to lick up his length with more enthusiasm now, starting to enjoy motion and way he responds to you. Feeling daring, you move your hand down to cup his balls gently, roll them in your hand. Dirk reacts well to that, dick twitching against your mouth and fingers tightening briefly in your hair. He doesn’t have cilia down here, just that same velvet soft fur.

Eventually, though, you bring your hand back up around him. It’s easier, having him better braced. You try to move your hand with you, careful not to pull on the cilia. There’s a funny little bump you keep running into, right at the base of his dick above his balls. You twist your wrist so you can feel the small node with your thumb instead, rubbing it lightly in questioning circles.

When you press it a little harder, Dirk actually shudders. You keep at it, pleased by his reaction, until he reaches down and grabs your wrist.

“Enough, enough,” he says, redirecting your hand back into a loose fist around him.

“Sorry,” you pull off to say immediately.

“You’re doing great,” he says. “It’s sensitive, that’s all.” He threads his hand back into your hair and rubs your scalp. You blink up at him, and he gives you a faint smile.

When you take him back into your mouth, you notice the difference nearly at once. The cilia aren’t writhing around in your mouth so much, more seeming to… pulse, expanding and then pulling back in close to his skin like a wave. They almost feel thicker, too. Odd, but you go back to work, trying to match the movement of your hand to that of your mouth’s as you bob your head.

Your lips begin to tingle as you slide over the cilia, and your face is wet. When you touch above your lips with your free hand, your fingers come back slightly sticky with a smear of a gel-like substance. There’s sweetness on your tongue. The hand you have around him and the fingers you just touched your face with are beginning to tingle too, much more faintly than the sensitive skin of your lips and inside your mouth.

Dirk would’ve warned you if it was dangerous to you, you decide, and swallow around him. More of the same substance oozes out of his cilia in response. You rub your tongue against them, seeing if you can encourage more out. It really is sweet, not like honey or sugar but certainly noticeable.

“Shit,” Dirk sighs above you when you swallow again. His hips rock up into your mouth, almost lazily.

You like that better than just bobbing up and down on him, actually. You try to indicate this to him by sucking harder, then letting your mouth go more lax around him, just rubbing at him with your tongue.

Dirk makes an inquiring noise. “You want something?” he asks.

You look up at him again, try to get him to understand without words. You slide your tongue past your lips and press it flat against him. The substance still dripping from his cilia smears against it.

“Tell me,” he says.

It’s too embarrassing to say outright, but you stroke him with your hand while you pull back and mutter, “You could, erm. You could move, if you wanted?”

“Oh,” Dirk says, what sounds like muted surprise in his voice. He urges you back down with his fingers against your scalp. You suck him back in gratefully and hum wordlessly around him. That’s much easier. “You want me to fuck your mouth, is that it?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, heat flooding you from tips to toes. It’s obscene, stated like that. Your dick makes a valiant return from half-hardness, and you shift on your knees again, restless.

“I can do that,” Dirk tells you. He tightens his grip in your hair. “I can totally do that, yeah.”

The sweet substance is getting to you, you think. You feel dizzy, tingling all the way back into your throat from swallowing. You whimper unintentionally when he pulls you closer and look up at him again, needing something from him. He gets both hands into your hair to hold you in a better position, but he’s kind about it, rubs the joint of your jaw soothingly with one hand.

You let your mouth go lax around him. He takes a second to move both of your hands to rest on the chair, then pets your hair as he starts rocking into your mouth, just little motions to start. Your lips tingle so pleasantly, the cilia leaving more and more of the substance smeared across your mouth. It warms you from the inside out when you swallow it.

Dirk pushes in harder, each rock getting him further into your mouth. This is tremendously better, you think. Your whole mouth is sweet and coated in faint pin-pricks that almost seem to help relax your throat, letting him get deeper. You just go easy for him, let him hold you and angle your head just so.

“That’s perfect,” he says as he thrusts into your mouth. “Fuck, that feels good, Jake.”

You hum, let your eyes go heavy-lidded. There’s something to this, you don’t know what, but you feel strangely calm, like you could rest here and let him work your mouth for as long as he needs. The ache in your jaw feels distant. Even your arousal seems like a far-off concern. You just want to keep making him feel good. You can see it in his face that you are. His brow is knitted, lips red from biting them.

Dirk is swearing under his breath softly. Every time he slips your name in between explicatives, lazy heat pulses through you, mingling with the strange warmth of the slick from his cilia. You are content.

In a short time, Dirk’s hands go tight on you, pulling you out of your daze. He groans, long and low, as his dick twitches and hot, salty come hits your tongue. You swallow it reflexively, after having swallowed down so much of the cilia slick. A little bit of it dribbles out of your mouth, and Dirk wipes it away with his thumb.

“Shit,” he sighs.

You lean into his hands, still feeling that odd drowsiness.

“Come on,” he says after a second. “Up here, now.”

It takes you a moment to coordinate your limbs and stiff knees, but you make it up into Dirk’s lap, leaning against him with your legs over one of the armrests. He wraps one arm securely around your back and fishes your dick out of your underpants with his other hand. Your mouth opens to pant against his neck.

“You did so well,” he tells you. “That was great, Jake. It was fucking fantastic.”

You moan quietly and let the feeling wash over you. Just his hand on you feels so good. He squeezes the tip on a stroke and you try to rock into his hand.

Dirk hushes you, keeps stroking you. It doesn’t take long: you’ve been worked up for some time now. You come into his hand with a choked out version of his name. He works you through it, angles you so your come splatters on your belly. Then he just holds you as you loll against him, feeling so loose and and quieted, like the stream behind the house on a peaceful, clear day in summer.

You come back to yourself finally, mostly due to the irritating sensation of drying fluids on your skin. It itches, making you shift restlessly.

“Hey,” Dirk says, voice low.

“It itches,” you complain in a mumble.

He chuckles. “You want to get cleaned up?”

You nod. You don’t particularly want to stand, so you just loop your arms around Dirk’s neck and wait for him to get the hint. He’s clever, and it doesn’t take him longer than a brief pause to get an arm under your legs and slowly push up to a standing position. He carries you up the stairs, letting you just shut your eyes and absorb his body heat. Your bed is terribly cold when he lays you on it, and you open your eyes in protest when he leaves you there. He returns soon though, with a soft damp cloth that he uses to wipe your mouth and chin, your hands, then your belly. Roused more fully, you wriggle under the covers and wait for him to join you.

He does, soon. He curls up behind you, wraps his tail around your waist and tucks his head into the back of your neck.

“You’re okay?” he asks you. There’s an odd thread to his voice that you can’t quite follow, something like concern.

“Mmhm,” you say indistinctly. You press backwards into his warmth, pull his tail closer so you can wrap your arms around it. Dirk kisses the back of your neck. You feel him touch your earring softly, but you’re too deep to react. Sleep carries you away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains: ear piercing (little bit of blood, needles, heals instantly), ear kissing/biting, d/s, xeno dicks and xeno fluids, subspace, mild facefucking
> 
> dirk's cilia slick just does tingles, warmth, and helps jake relax. it's not an altered mental state thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in the end notes

There is a sound. It reaches your ears, vaguely, a repeated tapping noise. You want the noise to scram, please and thanks, and turn with a grumble further into the lovely softness of your pillow.

“I’ll get it,” a familiar voice mumbles near your ear. Your eyes open with a start as your blanket suddenly decides it fancies a wander. The bed shifts and cold air hits your bare skin. Dirk clip-clops out of the room while you’re still getting your bearings.

You roll over onto your back and squint against the morning sun. Is it always this bright in the mornings? You yawn, then stretch with a groan. The annoying knocking finally stops.

...Knocking.

Oh, shitting crickets, Dirk just went to answer the door while you were snoozing away, didn’t he. Dirk, answering your door.

You spring out of bed. Well, you flail out of bed, feet caught in the sheets. You’re bare as a babe, and grab for the first article of clothing you find. Dirk’s skirt, that’ll have to do, because that’s surely Jane’s voice you’re hearing. You find a cardigan discarded over the back of a chair and pull it on as you hurry out of the room and clatter down the stairs.

Dirk stands in the doorway, the tip of his tail twitching like an irritated cat. Jane faces off with him from your doorstep, eyes determinedly on his face and not on his very naked body.

“Where is he?” she demands.

Dirk folds his arms and looks down at her from his full height. “Who’s asking?” he returns coolly.

“I’m surprised you don’t know that, seeing as you’re so at home in his house,” she snaps.

“It’s my house as well,” Dirk says. “That’s one of the facets of a marriage, you see. I’ll ask again: who are you to demand entrance to my home?” He holds his ground better than you’ve seen nearly anyone manage against Jane.

Jane draws herself up as tall as she can manage. “I’m Jake’s best friend, and I’m not leaving until I see that he’s in one piece.”

“Goodness, Janey, you woke me up from a dead sleep,” you say hurriedly, descending the final few stairs and making a space for yourself between Dirk and the door frame. “What’s got you over here so early? Is everything alright?”

“Jake!” She looks you up and down like you’d escaped from the zoo. “I came over to see how you were. It’s ten in the morning. You’ve usually been up for hours by this time.”

“Oh, gosh, is it that late? Criminy, I must’ve been real tired to sleep so long.” You force a smile in the face of Jane’s dissecting stare.

“We were up late,” Dirk offers, tone bland as broth.

“Yes, that must be it, I was just plum worn out.” Jane is giving your skirt the evil eye. _Not_ your skirt, Dirk’s skirt. “Having a husband will do that to you!” 

Wrong thing to say, absolutely the wrong thing to say. Jane turns cold, sharp as ice. “I’m sure you were occupied last night,” she says. “You do look wearied.” She glares at your neck. You flush hot, skin burning with the memory of Dirk’s tongue and teeth on it. You’ve got bruises, don’t you, and Jane’s looking at them like she wants to sear them off.

“Yes,” Dirk cuts in shortly. “I’m afraid it makes us not the best company at the moment. Is there something for which you wanted us… Jane, was it?”

Jane’s expressions goes tight. _It’s okay_ , you try to convey to her with a reassuring look that she fails to notice. “Yes, I’m Jane,” she says. “I was just stopping by to say hello to Jake, and was alarmed when nobody answered the door.”

“Well!” you say, reaching up to rub your neck. “That’s that all solved, then. Sorry to have made you come out of your way like this when I’m too busy to play a proper host, hm?” Your hair is an absolute mess, you can tell from first touch. You try to smooth it down surreptitiously, a strategy which seems doomed to failure given how intently Jane is still evaluating you. “How ‘bout I stop by sometime tomorrow afternoon instead?”

She hesitates. You can tell she doesn’t want to leave, but you really are not in a position where she could come in right now.

“Alright,” she says at last, clearly reluctant. “I’ll be expecting you tomorrow, then.”

“Perfect!” you say. “You’re a peach, Jane. I’ll see you then!”

She looks you over one last time, maybe calculating how much of you is clearly marked by Dirk’s presence. “It was nice to finally meet you, Dirk,” she says, which is such a brazen lie that you nearly laugh.

“I’m always pleased to meet someone dear to my husband,” Dirk returns, which — well, it must be true, faeries can’t lie. He didn’t quite specify that he meant Jane, though, did he.

She nods. “Um, bye, then,” she says.

“Bye,” you echo, stepping back. Jane turns and begins trudging back down the lane as Dirk closes the door.

As soon at the door latches shut, you sag against it with a groan. That… was not ideal. It didn’t go as poorly as it could have! But it certainly did not go well. Eyes shut, you grind your forehead against the door. You’re in for a fun time of it tomorrow.

“Jake?” Dirk asks softly.

He sounds so concerned and tentative. You roll your head to the side to look at him. All of the wound-up tension in him, ready to defend your household, seems to have drained right away without anyone to defend against.

“Well, that’s Jane,” you say. You shove off the door and push past him into the kitchen. If you’re up, you may as well eat. Even if apparently you’ve wasted half the morning being a layabout.

“Your friend?” Dirk prompts, trailing after you. “Is she over here often?”

“Often enough,” you say, opening a cupboard and staring in without really seeing anything. “We’ve been friends since we were little. Our whole lives, really. And her family helped me out a lot after… after Gran was gone.” Food. Breakfast. You have… bread. Jam. Close enough. You set the food out on the counter and brace yourself, hunching over.

Dirk’s hooves clip across the floor towards you. You shut your eyes as he approaches. “You seem… upset,” Dirk says leadingly. His voice is so earnest, genuine. He just wants to help, you think.

“Things are just complicated,” you say, eyes still squeezed shut. You feel like if you look at him, it’ll all come spilling out. You don’t know _what_ will come out, but there’s something bubbling and trapped in your chest, trying to speak. Why do you find it so easy to just give in to him? If he just asks, you think you’ll tell him everything, all the little boring details and all the horrendous painful hodge podge bullshit, and it doesn’t make sense.

You can’t do this.

Dirk makes a sharp, startled sound when you whirl away from him suddenly, abandon the kitchen in favor of the living room. You find a bookshelf in the corner, the one next to the windows, and stare intently at the spines. These were your gran’s favorites, when she was alive. Tales of mystery and magic alongside botanical knowledge and children’s stories about strange, friendly monsters. You miss her. It’s an easier, older pain.

He doesn’t follow you, and some of the tension dissipates when you hear him clattering around in the kitchen. You tip your head against one of the shelves and just breathe, ignoring Dirk, ignoring thoughts of Jane or of anything else.

You think about stories until your mind finally slows and your breathing steadies. By the time Dirk carefully approaches, you’re upright and reading the titles on the spines of the books again.

He offers you a plate like he means to appease you, though you weren’t upset with him. You try to smile as you accept it and Dirk looks a little heartened.

“Did I tell you about my books?” you ask him. “I always wish I could read them, but I have so much trouble with reading. Always have to read three times to really understand the words. But I’m certain I have so many good stories…” You trail off wistfully.

“I could read to you,” Dirk offers.

You open your mouth, then shut it again, lost for words. “I… no, I couldn’t let you. You’d get bored.”

“How could I?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “If you like the stories, but find the reading hard, I’d enjoy reading them to you. You strike me as someone who would make a good audience.”

You know he’s serious. He has that little solemn pinch between his eyebrows. You look towards the bookshelves, still utterly unfooted.

“Pick a book,” Dirk suggests. “If you want to, I mean. I’m making tea.”

He leaves you to the books again. For lack of something better to do with your hands, you take a bite of your breakfast and read over the titles again. When the tea kettle whistles, you select a volume from the shelves and tuck it under your arm.

Dirk meets you on the couch with a mug of tea for both of you. You mutely trade him the book for the tea. You don’t know the etiquette for this. Should you be leaning against his side or something? You settle for tucking your feet up under you and balancing your plate on your knees.

“This book is well-loved,” Dirk notes, running a finger over the frayed corner of the cover.

“It was my favorite, when I was little,” you admit.

“I see,” he says. He opens the book gently and flips past the table of contents. “‘Chapter One,’” he reads. “‘The Bride. The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was…’”

You eat your breakfast, and allow yourself to relax into the smooth cadence of his voice. Dirk has a decent voice for reading. He doesn’t inflect much to separate out the voices of different characters, but he speaks well and evenly, with very little hesitation.

It's not long before you are leaning back more relaxedly into the couch, eyes shut, with Dirk’s tail curled warmly over you. When your tea is all gone, you find yourself petting his tail instead, fingers buried in the long fluff and stroking the section draped across your lap.

It helps. You don’t know if he offered to read to you with the intention of soothing your frayed nerves, but that’s what it does. The story is familiar enough that you can let your thoughts drift without missing anything.

You must’ve looked strange to Jane. Wearing fae clothes and fae jewelry, standing beside your inhuman husband and turning her away. You _feel_ strange in some ways, in all honesty. There’s always been so many things you’ve wanted that you couldn’t have, things you’d told yourself you wouldn’t ever have. It wouldn’t have been responsible to seek them out, and therefore you had set them aside.

And then Dirk offers you everything you want on a golden platter and all you want to do is gobble it all up without a second thought to everything else in your life.

By the time Dirk reaches the end of the chapter — “‘“Yes," Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. "But I must never love again.”’” — you’ve relaxed fully, no longer petting his tail, just using it to warm your hands, really. You open your eyes when he doesn’t speak anymore, and find him regarding you soberly.

He sets the book aside on the table, then opens his arms to you questioningly. You shift over to curl against his side. He doesn’t ply you with questions, just holds you there as you sigh out the last of your tension.

“Is he really dead?” Dirk asks at length.

“Who?”

“Westley, from the book.”

“Oh, no.” You lean your head onto his shoulder more heavily. “He’s a bit death-defying, if memory serves. He and Buttercup are all right, in the end.”

“That’s good.”

You nod and shut your eyes again. “Things are just a bit… muddled up, with me and Jane,” you say. “They have been for years, really. And I’ve been too much of a coward to try to address it with her. Never wanted to say it out loud, as if putting voice to the troubles might make it more real.”

Dirk doesn’t reply. He starts rubbing between your shoulders, over your spine. It feels like all the words tangled up in your chest for so long are being straightened out and made a little more orderly from the comfort of those slow circles.

“Not that it really matters, I s’pose,” you say. “I married you, after all.”

“That’s not what she wanted?” Dirk guesses.

You sigh. “I don’t know if _want_ had much to do with it. I think she thought… Well, if you think about tales and such. It’s the childhood friends who always grow up and get married, don’t they? I think she just thought it made sense, for us. That it could work and be what’s best for everyone.”

“Would it have been?” he asks. “Best for you, I mean.” He’s being so gentle with you that you almost want to pull away. You’re not used to it, and it’s like sitting beside an open flame. Something you need distance from.

Flames can just warm you, you tell yourself.

“I don’t know. I grew up wanting… grand things. Magic, true love. All that nonsense. I’m not sure what would be _best_ for me, and if you ask Jane she’ll tell you that I am not the sort of person who thinks practically.” Bitterness seeps into your tone, and you try to swallow it away. “She means well. She’s my dearest friend, and I love her.”

“But you can’t _love_ her,” Dirk correctly interprets.

“Yeah.” You rub your cheek against the suede softness of his shoulder. “No offense meant, by the by. Clearly magic isn’t nonsense.” You tap your thumb to your wedding ring meaningfully.

“And true love?” Dirk asks.

You twist to look up at his face. His expression is carefully bland, giving nothing away.

“Well, um.” You feel terribly wrong-footed. “I… don’t know? Love is real, obviously. But the storybook kind…” You’d shrug if you didn’t think you’d dislodge him. “Real people don’t get swept off their feet and carried off into the sunset.”

“Mm,” Dirk acknowledges. “Are you worried that Jane’s feelings might be hurt?”

“Not exactly.” You find one of Dirk’s hooves and hook your foot around it. “It’s more… um.” How do you politely explain that Jane will not understand that you could enjoy spending time with him? “She’s… I don’t know how to say this nicely. I can’t imagine her not being fussed by the idea of sleeping with someone who goes about with antlers and a tail.”

Dirk snorts out a laugh. “I see,” he says. “She’d prefer human company in bed.”

“Well, I don’t know, it’s not like I’ve given it much thought!” His stupid tail is flicking in amusement. “She certainly wouldn’t… adjust as quickly as I did?”

“You grabbed my antlers on the very first night,” Dirk remembers. “Really, I thought it might takes weeks before you were comfortable around me.”

This time it’s your turn to snicker. “Well, aren’t you lucky?”

“I am,” he agrees.

You, of course, flush in pleased embarrassment. The feeling fades away after a moment into… something else, that you don’t quite know what to do with.

Dirk doesn’t seem to notice. “How are your ears today?” he asks. “All healed?”

You realize you’re still fiddling with your ring and force your hands to be still. “Haven’t felt so much as a twinge since you pierced them,” you reply.

“Good,” Dirk says. He tilts his head towards you, and — and downright nuzzles the side of your face. One of his hands creeps over to play with the bracelets you’re wearing. It’s one of the first ones he gave you, the matched set that you wear with one on each wrist. His touch is affectionate, but almost proprietary in an odd way. You know he likes seeing you wearing his creations — and you mean he _likes_ it, it gets him going.

It’s all a little much all at once. Your leg twitches involuntarily, sending a twinge of pain through the soreness left over from kneeling last night. You pull out of his grip.

Dirk lets you go, hands falling to his lap. You avoid looking at him, some horrid combination of confusion, shame, and overwhelmedness flooding you.

“Jake?” he asks, after a hesitant pause.

“I, I should.” You swallow. “I should… take a bath, get ready for the day. We’ve been lounging around all morning, haven’t we?”

“Nothing wrong with taking a few hours to relax,” Dirk says carefully.

“And I’ve kept you for hours later than you ordinary chose to dilly dally about here,” you continue, ignoring him. That jittery feeling is building in you, making your words come out faster. “You don’t have to linger. I’m sure you’ve got a whole spread of activities you need to get up to, out in your leg of the forest.”

“I have time,” he says. “I’ll always have time for you.” He reaches towards you tentatively again, and you pull back. “You’re upset. What’s the matter?”

“I’m fine,” you snap, and instantly regret it.

Dirk looks hurt for a moment before he wipes it away. He stands up instead, and for a moment you’re terrified that he’s going to walk right out of the house.

He doesn’t. He picks up his empty mug of tea, slides his tail out of your lap, then loops the long way around the couch to get yours and your breakfast plate. You stare at your knees as he takes them to the kitchen and starts washing up.

The message is clear as blue skies: he’s not touching you, he’s leaving you alone.

You bury your head in your hands as Dirk rattles around the kitchen. He was right. You are upset, but you really don’t know why. It just snuck up on you out of nowhere, like a cat on the hunt that finally decided to pounce.

Your stomach hurts. It was the way that Jane looked at you that started up the prowl, you think. The total lack of understanding of why you might continue to lay with your husband past the bounds of duty in her eyes. You curl a hand over your neck, on top of where you think you have bruises. Love bites. _What in sam hill do you think you’re doing?_ you ask yourself. Dirk all but blatantly tried to sound out your feelings around falling in love a few short minutes ago. And here you are, pushing him away, because…

Because he scares you, a little bit.

It’s not… He has treated you with frankly astonishing gentleness. The fae from stories, the fae that you _met_ other than Dirk, they’re all… Clever in a sharp way, something you have to handle gingerly without ever letting on that you’re uneasy. Dirk hasn’t made you feel like that since your wedding ceremony, where you were so uncertain of him because you had just met.

Hell, you trusted him as a clearly magical deer more than you had any right to.

And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? You know you’re doing things that are, by logic, unwise.

For instance: letting a fae creature tell you to kneel and not touch yourself, to service him instead. Relaxing so much into some quiet place in your head while he used your mouth that he had to carry you to bed. It’s just asking for trouble, letting him direct you.

You feel miserable, sick. Why do you feel so safe with him? It’s not fair that you like him so much when you should by all rights be on your guard with him.

The kitchen has gone quiet, but you know without looking that he hasn’t gone anywhere. “Dirk,” you say very quietly.

He hears you. His footsteps clip closer to you. When you look up, you find him waiting at the other end of the couch.

You wave a hand vaguely for him to sit, and he does. He doesn’t try to touch you, keeps his tail wrapped neatly away. Of course, now that he’s politely giving you space, you want to curl up against him as tight as you can.

“It’s…” you start, then take a deep breath. Brace yourself on your knees and speak to the rug, when it’s too hard to meet his deliberately neutral gaze. “I’m… confused.” Your words dry up, and you swallow against the confused knot of pain in your throat.

“You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not,” Dirk says, when you fail to speak again. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

It… It helps, to hear him say that. Your every instinct tells you that Dirk hasn’t been misleading you by offering you anything you could think to ask for. You want to trust that.

There’s a lot in your head. You choose a small piece to share. “I’m… just mixed up about last night, I think. I’ve never… done something like that before? Um. If you understand.”

Dirk drums his fingers on his knee. “I’m… not sure I do? Unless you mean. Letting me direct you?”

Your ears turn red, you’re pretty sure. “Erm, yes, that.”

“If it’s not to your taste, we don’t have to do anything like that again,” he says. “Jake, I’m… beyond serious when I say that I just want to give you what you want. I thought you would like it, but if you didn’t… I’m sorry.”

You risk a glance at him. He looks… smaller than usual. Defeated, maybe.

“I liked it,” you say, and worry one of the loose threads at the hem of your cardigan. “I did. I just… feel like perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh,” Dirk says, still subdued.

“Did you like it?” you ask.

“I did like it,” he says. “But my liking something doesn’t mean it’s something we have to do together. You can always tell me to stop if you don’t like something, or if it’s… too much.”

You bite your lip. “I liked doing that. Just… so long as you know that I don’t need to be told what to do in the rest of my life. I can take care of myself.”

Dirk nods immediately. “I know you can,” he promises. “That’s part of what I liked about you, you know, when I first saw you working in your garden. You’re a very capable person.”

You finally turn to face him full on. Dirk still looks nervous, but you’re finally beginning to feel settled.

“I — I like you very much, Dirklin Strider,” you tell him. He inhales a sharp breath. You plunge on despite yourself. “I’m glad to have met you, and… I like the things we do together. I really do.”

Dirk’s eyes are wide, gold like the sun. He looks… almost awed.

“Jake English, I adore you,” he says.

Well, you have to kiss him, after that. You crawl across the sofa into his arms, wrap one hand around the base of an antler, and kiss him until the remnants of muddled shame in your chest lift away.

“You really don’t have anywhere to be?” you ask him, a little breathless. You pet the hot, velvet softness of the antler until your hand.

“I do have somewhere to be,” he says. “Right here.”

You laugh, and he smiles back just enough to show that he’s teasing you. As much as you’d like to stay astride his lap and kiss you both senseless, your stomach is telling you that it’s lunchtime, and you reluctantly climb out of his lap. You take his hand, though, and pull him along with you.

The rest of the day is spent together, and it’s… a bit wonderful. You walk him through your garden, tell him where everything grows, what you usually plant in the springtime. He’s an attentive, thoughtful audience, seeming genuinely interested in hearing about your little homebody life.

You cook dinner together, then kiss over the sink when you clean up like you do this every night. He tastes like spices, and his fur is so warm under your hands.

By mutual unspoken agreement, you both break the kiss before it goes any further. You dip your head down to rest your forehead against his chest.

“I might take that bath after all,” you say, eyes shut, enjoying the soft texture against your face. “Do you mind entertaining yourself for a bit?”

“Not at all,” Dirk says. “Can I borrow a book?”

You smile. “Absolutely. And feel free to keep on with the one we were reading earlier, I don’t mind skipping ahead. I’ll just boil the water, then.” Always a hassle, but in your opinion, worth it for when you need a good soak.

“Don’t worry about that,” Dirk says. “I can heat up the water for you.”

You lean back from him with a frown. “What, with magic?”

He nods, and wiggles his fingers like a dork. You grin at him.

“Well then!” you say. “I’ll just draw the water up.”

When the tub is full, Dirk heats the water to a perfect temperature with just the touch of his fingertips to the surface. You kiss his cheek as he leaves you to it and watch his ears shiver as he hurries out. Your bath is lovely, rejuvenating, but though you’re loathe to waste the hot water, you keep your ablutions brief, wanting to rejoin Dirk.

Despite waking up late, you’re tired by the time you’re out of the tub and scrubbing your hair dry. You clean your teeth, yawn, and pull on fresh underwear and a loose shirt so you can go find Dirk. He’s sprawled out on your bed with the book, head angled carefully so as to not hit his antlers on anything. His tail spills out onto the floor, the tip twitching occasionally as he reads. He licks his fingers to turn the pages.

“Hello there,” you say.

He looks up and favors you with a warm smile. “Hey,” he says, and scoots over to make room for you. “Good bath?”

“ _Excellent_ bath,” you say, pulling the blankets down far enough to crawl under. “I can never get it warm enough on my own.”

He laughs quietly. “Glad to be of assistance.” He raises the book inquiringly. “Want me to read?”

“Yes, please,” you say. You tuck the pillow under the side of your head and shut your eyes.

His hand lands in your hair and he clears his throat. “‘Something was indeed there. Less than a mile behind them across the moonlight was another sailing boat, small, painted what looked like black, with a giant sail that billowed black in the night, and a single man at the tiller. A man in black.’”

“Oh, I love this part,” you say, drowsy as he continues to rub your scalp.

You can hear the smile in his voice as he continues reading. His smooth voice, combined with the attention to your hair, is irresistibly soothing. Despite your best efforts, you find yourself drifting off.

Somewhere in the land between waking and sleeping, you hear Dirk get up to douse the light. The bed shifts, and you rolls towards him with a mumbled complaint. You find something warm and soft, curl up against it, and drift back to sleep.

Dirk slips off early in the morning with a kiss and a promise to see you later. You watch him vanish into the trees, filled with a sweet happiness that you haven’t felt in a long while. It makes your meetup with Jane that afternoon much more bearable.

Jane plies you with uneasy concern until you finally snap at her. “I really don’t see how it’s any of your business if or how often my husband and I make love,” you tell her. Then, embarrassed to have spoken so baldly, you flee while she’s still spluttering.

You’re very much looking forward to another quiet evening with Dirk after that bit of uncomfortably personal conversation.

But.

Dirk never arrives that night.

And then the next night passes without a trace of him, too.

 

End of Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: sub drop! that's really the big one for this chapter. jake doesn't quite know that it's sub drop, but they deal with it well. also: kink negotiation. 
> 
> yes, they're reading the princess bride. but it's like, an alt-universe version of the princess bride, where they don't reference real-life countries constantly.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings for this chapter.

By the third morning with no sign of Dirk, your mind is made up.

See, here’s the thing about the fae folk. They are known for certain patterns of behavior. Being wary of indebtment, using clever turns of phrase that mislead the listener despite not being able to lie, and nonetheless being true to their word. If you do a faerie a favor, they’re sure to pay you back, no matter if you like their method of doing so. If a faerie makes you a promise, they’ll come through.

You are, in your opinion, very reasonably worried.

You’ve been keeping your gifts from Dirk in your grandma’s old jewelry box when you’re not wearing them. It’s not always practical for you to be wearing, say, loose bangles around your ankles when you’re trying to tromp around in the mud after a rainstorm. You keep them tucked away safe instead.

Sitting on the edge of your bed in your underclothes, you run your fingers over the lid of the box. There was an engraving here, once, but it’s been worn away from use, leaving you to only be able to guess at what the shape once was. Taking a deep breath for courage, you open the box. You’ll need all the armor you have for this.

What would your grandma tell you if she were here today? She’d give you a lecture on keeping your wits about you, that’s for sure. Go over all the rules of Faerie once again, tell you to rehearse what you’re going to say to the folk you run across so you don’t fumble at a key moment. She’d remind you that, even if Dirk has implied that his status is more ceremonial than practical, you wedded not just any old faerie, but the prince of a kingdom. You’re not without rank in Autumn.

You believe that Dirk will protect you. It was in your vows. But you also think that any faerie with sense will think twice of pissing off royalty.

The anklets go around your ankles, the bracelets on your wrists, the rings on your fingers. You clasp the arm band around your bicep, check that your earrings are still firmly threaded through your ear lobes. All in order.

You want to be careful with the delicate metal, and tuck the anklets into your socks at an angle. You’d feel dreadful if the pressure of your boots ended up denting them. A warm pair of pants go on over your legs, a shirt and wool sweater over your undershirt. You take your time doing up the buttons, making sure none of them have been chipped.

Appearances are… a bit paramount, here. You tug your sleeves through the bracelets so that they’ll reflect the sunlight and draw attention. No point in wearing them if they just go invisible under your clothes.

Over your shoulders, you clasp your wedding cloak from Dirk. The clasp, made of smooth white antler, clicks together over your chest. Well then. This is a blatant sign of protection from the prince, even if all else fails.

Last step: you lace up your trusty old boots. Alright, then. Ready to go.

You open the door, readjust your bag over your shoulder, and palm your key. You almost never lock the house, but… if you’re going to be gone, well.

The key fits in the lock as easily as ever. You swallow hard, once, and then drop the key into your bag. No looking back yet, you tell yourself, and start off down the road.

The way to Jane’s house passes through a big section of town. At midmorning, there are plenty of people out and about. You attract some curious stares, dressed for travel and decorated in fae attire. You try not to shrink from the attention. It’s hard. You’ve never liked to be stared at, not one bit. Trying not to give in to the urge to pull the hood over your head, you sink into the cloak a bit, hunching your shoulders, and walk faster. A few murmurs follow you, but nobody calls out, to your endless relief.

Jane answers the door when you knock.

“Jake?” she asks, sounding confused. She takes in the bag and the cloak. “What’s all this?”

You straighten up, try to bolster yourself with conviction. “Dirk hasn’t been by in days,” you say. “I’m worried about him, so I’m going to go find him.”

“ _What?_ ” Jane says — snaps, really. You wince. “You can’t just go running off into the forest! Have you lost your mind?”

“No, I haven’t,” you say. “And — and you won’t be changing my mind, Jane, something must have happened to him! He wouldn’t just disappear like this.”

She snorts. “As if you know him so well! You’ve been married mere weeks and you think you know how the mind of a creature like him works? He’s not human! He’s _fae_ , he’s more deer than he even so much as looks like us! This must be a trap.”

“It’s not a trap,” you say.

“You don’t know that,” she returns. “He might have gained your trust only to lure you out after him. He’s the prince! He might control the gateway, bring you through it only to close you away from us forever. You wouldn’t survive what they’d do to you, Jake.”

You shake your head. “He’s not like that. He won’t let anything hurt me.”

Jane just fists her hands in her skirt. You know she won’t believe you.

“I’m going,” you tell her.

“I’ll stop you!” Jane looks desperate.

“I’m going, Janey.” You force yourself not to fidget. You can’t let on how much it hurts you to argue with her. “Time… time passes differently there. I expect I’ll be back in, say, a month?”

“A month!” she says. “But your, your garden, and…” She trails off and shakes her head. “You can’t leave me.”

“I’m not,” you say. “It’s only for a little while.”

Her unhappiness is building a lump in your throat that you swallow with difficulty. You mustn’t tear up. It’ll be too hard to leave if you do.

“It’ll be alright,” you tell her. Try to muster up a smile. “It’s not like you really need me around here! You have the village running so smoothly.”

She presses her lips into a tight line. “I can’t change your mind,” she says, hardly a question at all.

“I have to find him,” you say quietly.

“At least tell me you’re bringing a weapon,” she says.

“Couldn’t, bringing something would be more dangerous than not,” you say. “But I’m prepared, don’t you fret. They won’t harm the prince’s husband, I can leverage that.”

Jane still stands, stubborn and upset. You hold out your arms questioningly.

She hugs you like an accusation. You squeeze her tight in return, trying to wordlessly convey how much you care for her. When she lets you go, her eyes glitter with tears for a moment before she blinks them away.

“Okay,” she says. “Find him. I hope — I hope he’s as good to you as you think he is. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” you say. “I’ll see you, Janey.”

Walking away from her is hard, but you make yourself do it. At the end of the lane you look back, and find her watching you from the doorway still. You raise your hand, and she waves back once. Then you round the corner and she’s gone from sight.

You sniff a few times, wipe your nose on your sleeve, and hoist your bag higher over your shoulder. This hike won’t walk itself.

The rest of the path to the forest takes you past more staring people. Only one calls out to you: the candlemaker, Mia.

“Are you going somewhere?”

You don’t want to be rude, so you pause long enough to say, “Just an excursion, I’ll be back, erm, eventually! No reason to worry.”

“Be careful out there,” someone else says.

“I will be,” you assure them, and try not to look like you’re making a run for it out of town.

It’s not that your fellow villagers are bad people! They’re good people. But they’re… a tad nosy, and you hated all the fussing over you when your grandma passed. It was easier to just keep to yourself, and you like to keep it that way.

You make it to the edge of town without being stopped again, follow the path out to the little bridge. You think you mostly remember the way you took last time you came out here, for your wedding. It won’t be hard to find your way back.

It’s what comes after that’s tricky.

You cross the bridge and head deeper into the woods of your childhood, determined to see this through.

The forest swallows you quickly. It would be easy to get turned around if you were unfamiliar with the landscape, but as it is, you pick your way through the ferns and underbrush with minimal hesitation. The tall, shadowy trees loom all about you, casting dappled light down to the forest floor.

You remember how it went last time you came this way, with Jane. The forest was familiar for quite some time, and then you began to feel the strain in the air as you approached the borderline between your world and Autumn. It's not long before you begin to feel that same pressure again, the sense of slipping sideways through space, even though when you blink the forest looks the same as ever around you.

Though you call it a gateway, the passage between your worlds is nothing so clear clearly delineated. It's simply a gradient shift from a forest you know to a growing impression of strangeness.

You blink several times before deciding that no, your eyes aren't fooling you, it really is getting darker. When you tilt your head back to watch the sky through the craggy shapes of the trees as you walk, the sun slips down to the horizon the further you go. You shake your head to try and dismiss the bizarre sight, but the sun continues the swift descent to setting with each step you take.

The trees change. Not merely in variety of tree, but in small tangible ways that mark a difference from any tree you've ever seen. When you lean an arm against one for a moment, you nearly sink in as if it were made up water or quicksand rather than solid bark. Some of the trees drip. You don't know what they're dripping — it's not water.

Much of the underbrush clears away as you walk. You're used to having to pick your way carefully, not liking to trample too many small plants in your path. However, instead of growing where you'd like to step, ferns, more delicate than any you've seen before, cling to the base of trees rather than spreading freely through the soil.

A bird sings on a branch with a voice like wind chimes. When you tilt your head back to look at it, it takes off from the branch in a flurry of gleaming light, as if its feathers were glass reflecting the final rays of the setting sun. Queer purple mushrooms grow from a decaying fallen log. You are very careful not to touch them as you gingerly step over the log.

You... are not actually sure how far it is from the line between your village and Autumn to where Dirk lives. You don't know if you're going in the right direction. You don't have any way to know if the cardinal directions are the same here. The last hint of sunshine slips away, leaving you in a soft twilight. Dusk: the space between day and night.  

The air is still. You pause to look around in hopes of getting any sense of where you should be going. It's striking you that you really should have considered asking Dirk a little bit more about where he lives when you had the chance.

Well, you can commence by looking for signs of fae life. So far you found fae animals, fae plants, but no faeries.

The mushrooms, perhaps. You scan in a slow circle, looking for a pixie ring. None yet catch your eye, but you'll keep looking. You're fairly sure you've continued in a straight line, more or less, as you shifted into Autumn. Though, you're not entirely sure that the fae much bother with straight lines to begin with. You don't know if it's better or worse not to run into anyone. Lost wandering in a fae forest forever would be a bad way to go.

Courage, Jake. You gather your cloak around you, draw strength from the ring on your fourth finger. You'll find someone, or something will find you, and Dirk is your safe passage. You set out again.

You continue to scan the ground for mushroom rings as you walk. You truly beginning to feel the start of nervousness when you find a circle of red capped mushrooms. The ring is quite large: within it are several sizeable trees.

All of your good sense tells you not to step within the circle. The trouble is, you don't see any faeries. You suppose that makes sense. The way they're meant to get you is by the lure of curiosity. That wouldn't work if you saw a faerie and sensibly retreated.

Now then. What to do in this case. Damaging the ring is out of the question. Neither can you step inside. You hover there, no doubt looking a bit foolish, hoping that some invisible creature will be lured out by your blatant humanity.

Nothing appears. You sigh. Perhaps you'd been a bit too hopeful and thinking of pixie ring might be your solution. For all you know, this is an old rundown pixie ring, perhaps abandoned by the folks who used to occupy it.

You look around at the trees instead. They all look ordinary, or as ordinary as a fae tree can get. You really are quite out of your depth, and no doubt advertising at by how your nervously glancing about like a small-town traveler lost in a big city. Oh, brother. It's too soon to lose hope, you tell yourself sternly. There is no cause to think that you've taken such a wrong turn that there's new hope for correction.

And… If you really do lose your way. You suppose the danger is in being overheard. But you do know Dirk's true name. If you speak it, he'll find you.

Voices. You hear voices.

You just barely restrain yourself from whirling about and chasing after the sound. Instead, you try to walk carefully and purposefully towards the voices. You gather yourself, make sure your jewelry is visible around your wrists and fingers. Be careful, you tell yourself.

You follow the sound until you are fairly sure the speakers are just out of sight behind the next copse of trees. Take a breath, wait for a brief pause in the voices. You can't quite tell what they are saying. It all sounds just a bit garbled, like listening to music through water.

"Hello?" you call out cautiously. "I hope I'm not interrupting – is somebody there?"

Silence for a moment. Then, all at once, you are surrounded. It feels like being bum-rushed by a windstorm, albeit a storm that smells bizarrely of cloves and rotting leaves. You gasp sharply at the sensation of shapes swirling all around you. Your eyes blur, watering, stinging. Don't shut your eyes, you tell yourself. You blink, and keep them open.

The shapes settle for the most part. A fox the size of a hound, a hewn pillar of stone with clutching hands like little daggers. A sweetly smiling child, with hair like rubies and a complexion like the sky at sunrise. There are more, but you are very careful not to stare.

"Hope I'm not being a bother," you say. "I'm looking for my husband, the Prince."

The fox shivers and stretches, rearing onto its hind legs and shifting form as you've seen Dirk do. In moments, it stands mostly upright, though by far not humanoid.

"The Prince?" it repeats. "Our prince, or have you strayed far from one of your human settlements?"

"Oh no, I mean your prince. The Prince of Autumn. I married him not too long back."

"Ah, I see, you’re his little human." You feel quite stared at suddenly, the sense of even hidden things in the trees all turning their attention to you. "Have you lost your way?”

"Not so much lost my way as might've taken a wrong turn," you say. "See, my husband and I have a regular schedule for seeing each other, as we live in different realms. This time I'm taking a turn of visiting him, having a spin at seeing where he rests his head between visits to me." You straighten your shoulders and try to put on your best smile. "I have to say, this really is a charming neck of the woods. I doubt I have the capacity to appreciate it fully, being human and all, but I've been very much enjoying what I see as I've been passing through."

The fox bears its teeth a return grin, fangs on display. "How lucky our prince is to have found himself a husband with good taste."

"It only seems appropriate," you say. "Seeing as what I've learned of my husband so far indicates that he highly values aesthetics."

"He does have specific taste," the fox says with tone that you are inclined to interpret as mocking in some way.

"Well, I'm sure he's wondering where I’ve gotten to," you say. "I had best be off, wouldn't want to worry him. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Perhaps we’ll see each other around?" You direct your question to the gathering of fae at large.

"Perhaps,” rumbles the stone fae.

"Careful where you tread," chirps the strange child fae. "The Hunt is about."

Having been about to turn, you stop dead. "The Hunt?"

"Oh, yes," says the fox. "Didn't you know?"

"I – I hadn't heard," you say. "The Wild Hunt?"

"Is there a different sort of hunt?" asks the fox. "Perhaps a human sort that we should be aware of?"

"Oh, no, nothing like a true fae hunt," you say, shaken. "Is… Is the Hunt taking place at this moment?"

The Hunt. Perhaps one of the most notorious aspects to the fae. Woe betide any fool who tries to flee from the Hunt but is nonetheless caught.

"At the moment, not so specifically,” says the child. "We would have heard the hounds if the game was afoot. I believe they stopped in the area because of your husband. Royalty have often been a part of the Hunt.”

“Have they,” you say, desperately racking your brains for a sense of how you can keep your feet planted below you where they ought to be for this conversation. "Well, that may make it easier to find him at least," you say, "if he's amidst a crowd." You hear nothing, still, no suggestion of where he might be.

This is troublesome. If there's any risk of you find afoul of the Hunt, you need Dirk at your side. The risk is simply too high. These fae are speaking as though Dirk is quite all right, which relieves you. At least you know that he's not in any trouble. Maybe he's just been too busy for you, if the Hunt has been preoccupying him. You hope you're not about to put him in an uncomfortable situation by showing up out of the blue like this.

"Where the Hunt goes, there is always fun to be found," says the fox.

Not a true answer, but confirmation enough that there's some sort of gathering.

You’re stumped. Either you need to make the gracious exit and called Dirk for help with his name, potentially pulling him away from an important situation, or you to return to your original plan and see if you can get a point in the right direction.

"I'll be sure to watch my steps," you say. "I do need to keep on with tracking down my husband, though. I appreciate your stopping to chat with me."

“If it’s no trouble to you, I’ll accompany you,” says the child fae unexpectedly. “The Hunt throws the _best_ parties.”

“I was headed that direction as well,” says the fox.

Thank the gods. Now you just have to hope they don’t lead you astray. “I’d be glad for the company, if you’d both like to come with.”

The rest of the gathering declines to join you, but the child and the fox fall into place on either side of you. Hitching your bag up on your shoulder again, you match stride with them, trying to seem confident in your steps.

“I hope you have found the prince an agreeable husband, Consort,” says the fox. “It’s not often that one gets to see a royal wedding — I found yours delightful.”

You just barely stop yourself from voicing your startlement at hearing the fox was at your wedding. “He’s more than agreeable,” you say. “I couldn’t ask for a better husband, that’s the honest truth.”

“I’m sure we’re all glad to hear it,” the fox says.

Well, you’re not sure you believe a phrasing like that, but you do your best to accept the compliment politely.

They lead you onward, you keeping your eyes peeled sharply for signs that you’re being led to a faerie trap. But! Soon enough you begin to hear more sounds, distant voices and music.

You are relieved beyond words, to be frank. The trees around you are beginning to grow in size, the trunks massive at the bases. Fae homes, you think. Dirk said he lives in a hollow tree. You must be in his — village, of a sort. You begin to see more faeries around you, watching you from behind trees, groups turning to see you pass. They must know you’re human. You keep your chin up and try to look like you belong.

Deeper into the village you wind, more laughing fae and strange sounds that make your head spin. Your vision blurs over a few times, and it takes everything you have not to stumble. You’re suddenly desperate for a lie down. They must be throwing magic at you, seeing how you’ll react, you think vaguely. It’s hard to form a coherent thought through the din in your head.

Everything is — just too beautiful, it burns your eyes until you still see colors swimming when you shut them. It hurts. Nothing should be this beautiful, it’s beyond reason for such fascinating little things to be an exist — existent —

Someone’s hand cups your chin. Your eyes focus, and your mind goes clear.

“Hi,” you breathe, staring up into Dirk’s concerned eyes.

“My prince,” says the fox, with enough of a respectful tone to pass muster. “You consort says you were expecting him.”

“And glad I am to see him,” Dirk replies. He releases your chin and lays his hand on your shoulder instead.

You try to get yourself together. “I hope you enjoy the party,” you say to the child and fox.

They both bow, and retreat without further ado.

You’re startled by a cackling burst of laughter. A faerie slings an arm around Dirk’s waist, astonishingly familiar. They grin at you, and you try not to flinch back. Those aren’t teeth. You don’t know what they are, but this faerie has flowers growing out of their skin, roots visibly pushing against the skin in places, flowers blooming from their chest in the place of nipples.

“Well, my goodness,” they croon. “Aren’t you precious.”

“Not now,” Dirk mutters.

“What, don’t I deserve a good look at your human?” Thorns, you think they have _thorns_ instead of teeth. “What a _cutie_.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Dirk says, shaking them off. To you: “Let’s get you inside, okay?”

You nod, still a little dizzy. He rests a hand on your back to guide you through the crowd. “I want all the details!” the flower fae shouts after you. Dirk waves them off and keeps you close to his side. You wind your way together to the edge of the crowd until you reach one of the hugely broad trees.

Dirk opens the door for you and wordlessly gestures you in.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings at the end /blows kiss
> 
> i'm going to be going back through and fixing typos soon i swear

As soon as the door latches behind you, the noise fades dramatically, down to just a low, distant murmur. 

The words burst out of you before you have time to even take in the interior of Dirk’s house. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in Autumn like this without warning you first, but you were gone so long. I got frightfully worried, had all sorts of awful scenarios rattling through my head.” 

Dirk holds up a hand to slow you down. “It’s okay,” he says. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have vanished like that. Of course you worried.” 

You bite your lip. “But — you’re alright?”

He nods. “One of the smaller Hunts was in the area. Travelling with them is an old friend of mine, and I completely lost track of time while getting caught up with her.” He takes a hesitant half-step towards you. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one that’s sorry.” 

You still feel embarrassed, and wring your hands together. “Still, now you’ve got me here in the midst of having all of these visitors to account for.” 

He snorts. “Just between us, I’m glad for an excuse to step away from it.” Dirk moves past you into the house and does something that makes little lights spring to life around you, lighting up the room. 

“What, you don’t like gatherings like this?” You look around curiously. The lights hang from the smooth wood walls: strange, formless orbs that emit a wispy yellow glow. 

“They’re a fucking mess, like always,” Dirk says. “Will you come sit?” 

He’s indicating one of the chairs arranged in a neat little sitting room style. There’s a few styles of chairs, in fact. A few cushy ones like the ones you have in your own home besides two tall stools. Dirk sits on the stool when you join him, his long legs hooking around it in a way that looks more comfortable than he does sitting in an ordinary chair. 

“I just want to check and make sure there’s nothing lingering on you,” he tells you. “Is that okay?” 

You nod. “I don’t think they did anything too terrible, it all cleared up in a jiffy when you got your hands on me.” 

“Still, best to be sure.” Dirk leans in towards you and cups the side of your face in one hand, fingers on your temple. You blink, then meet his gaze and are caught. The honey-gold of them burn like flames in the warm lighting, and you taste something bitter, flooding the back of your tongue like the flavor of oil gone rancid. Your fingertips tingle as if numb from cold. 

“Hmm,” Dirk says distantly. He leans in and presses his lips to your forehead. Heat floods you, beginning from under the gentle pressure of his lips and sinking through you to the tips of your toes. Your next inhale smells of fallen leaves. 

Dirk leans back, and you blink hard several times. Swallow down a lingering flavor that reminds you of cloves. “All good?” you ask. 

“Good to go.” He looks you over. “You’re wearing my cloak.” 

You reach up to fidget with the clasp. “Yes, well, I thought, if I was coming onto your lands, it was best to be wearing things that clearly marked me as yours! Not that I think that you think I belong to you or that I’m — I just thought, it seemed prudent…” You trail off, flushing. 

“Very clever,” Dirk says. “It was a smart move, Jake. You’re safe with me, but on your own out here, it wouldn’t be hard for… something unsavory to befall you. You’re right. The cloak helps protect you.” 

You nod. “And… I didn’t want to leave it behind, if something did happen. It’s too handsome a cloak to spend its days hidden in a closet in my old house.” 

“I’m very glad you think so,” Dirk says. His ears tilt up and towards you in a way you’ve decided means he’s happy. “Well, in any case: welcome to my home. _Our_  home, I should say. It’s as much yours as it is mine.” 

You look around. The interior of the room is not so enormous on the inside as it looks from the outside, with such an oversized tree. It’s circular, with wooden walls of a soft brown. The floor you’ve been mucking up with your boots has the familiar circles-within-circles pattern of the inside of a tree. There’s a few windows, narrow slits in the walls where the tree has grown apart. Someone, presumably Dirk, has fitted the holes out with glass. Along one wall a spiral staircase runs, heading upwards. 

“I like it,” you say at last, honestly. 

Dirk smiles, faint but warm. “This sitting area is mostly for when I have guests, which is rarely. Upstairs is more charming, I think. Would you like a tour?” 

“I’d love one,” you say. You bend to unlace your boots, and Dirk takes them to put them by the door while you fish your anklets out of your socks. They jangle down to rest against your feet, and you wiggle your toes, pleased. 

“I’ll carry your bag, if you’d like,” Dirk offers solicitously. 

“Oh, sure, thanks,” you say, letting him take it and rubbing your sore shoulder. You follow him up the stairs, looking around. So far the walls have been bare, no portraits or wall hangings. The next level up turns out to be a kitchen and eating area. 

“Well, this is different,” you say, immediately moving to inspect the kitchen. You open a wooden chest and are greeted with a wave of cool air. “Oh, neat!” 

“It keeps the food from spoiling,” Dirk agrees. 

“That’s very handy,” you say. The food you initially see inside is mostly berries and mushrooms and leafy greens. Not wanting to poke around too much, you close the lid again, still impressed by the convenience of the chest. “Do you have one of these for hot things?” 

“Similar, yes,” he confirms. “Now you see why I struggled with your kitchen.” 

You grin up at him. “My plain old mundane kitchen was too confusing after your fancy magical kitchen, was it?” 

“There are some benefits to magic,” he says, turning away as if to hide the fact that he’s smiling. “But, yes, this is where I prepare meals. The next floor up is more interesting, I think.” 

He’s right. The next level is a workshop. 

You stand by the stairs and gaze around, wide-eyed. “Wow, Dirk,” you say. “This is where you make jewelry?” 

He nods and moves past you to the workbench. On the wall above it are a wide variety of tools, neatly hung in place. “I use magic for heating the metal, which makes the process easier,” he explains. He picks something up from the table and hides it in his hand. “I make other things, too, sometimes,” he says. “Depends on the day, really. But jewelry is my favorite.” 

You eye his hand, suspecting he’s concealing a gift for you. “You’re a man of many talents,” you say. “Or, hm. A deer of many talents!” 

He shakes his head, looking amused. “Here,” he says, and holds his hand out. 

You were right. In his palm is a small ring. You pluck it from his hand, thrilled. 

“It’s a pinky ring,” he clarifies. “That’s why it’s smaller.” 

The ring is made of very light colored wood with a dark stripe in the center. You slide it onto your left pinky and wiggle your fingers. “I love it,” you tell him earnestly. 

His ears shiver with delight. “I’m glad.” 

“Can I watch you work, sometime?” you ask. 

“Of course,” he says. “I’d love to have the company, actually.” His ears twist downwards, maybe embarrassment? His tail twitches, too. 

“I’ve just never seen a jeweler at work,” you tell him as he walks past you to the stairs again. “It seems so interesting to me. Much more fun to watch than just me gardening.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Dirk disagrees. “I enjoy watching you garden.” 

Privately you think maybe he likes watching you do it because gardening is a rather physical sort of work. He likes watching you move around, you’ve noticed. 

“Well, this is my bedroom,” Dirk says, gesturing you before him. “It doubles as where I spend my time if I’m relaxing. Up the stairs from here is just the bath.” 

Bookshelves. That’s your first impression. Half of the wall space is lined with bookshelves. He has a comfortable loveseat for reading, what looks like a wardrobe for clothes. But the most interesting thing you see is the three steps up to a raised area of the room alongside the stairs. 

“Is that…” you ask, indicating the platform. 

“Here, come look,” he invites. He hops up easily onto the platform, but you, with your shorter legs, climb the steps. In the center of the platform is what you determine must be his bed. 

“It’s like a nest,” you say. The bed is set into the wood of the platform like it was scooped out with an enormous melon baller and then padded and filled with blankets and pillows. It all looks terribly comfortable. 

However, your attention is drawn behind the nest bed. Along the wall behind it, a window much larger than any you've yet seen in the house offers a view down across the village. You gravitate to it in order to look out. Dirk follows you, carefully clip-clopping his way around the edge of the bed. 

"It's… beautiful," you say. Though you can no longer hear the sounds of the party, you can still see all of the dancing lights, flickering orange and gold through the shadowy shapes of the trees. Juxtaposed with the blue color of twilight in the air, the whole scene seems to glow with gauzy light.

“I can darken the glass, too, if need be,” Dirk says. He places his fingertips on the window to demonstrate, and the glass darkens, becomes more opaque, before lightening back to transparency. 

You’re startled and fascinated by his casual use of magic. “Can you do that to any window?” you ask. 

“Technically speaking, yes,” he says. “It’s easier in my own home, though. The glass knows me, and is more willing to listen to what I ask of it.” 

If your grandma was alive, she’d want you to take notes. She was fascinated by all types of magic, was devoted to studying them before she had you to take care of. You just file the information away as Dirk returns out to the main part of the room to settle your back on a dresser. 

“I expect you’re tired after having come all this way,” he says. “You’re welcome to anything in this house, so don’t hesitate if you’re hungry or if you want to bathe.” 

You consider your feet, wiggling your toes in your socks as you think. “I think a bath might be in order,” you admit. You don’t want to lie in Dirk’s nice bed with the sweat of a long hike still dried on your skin. “Upstairs, right?” 

“Yes, and there’s a shower, too, if you prefer.” 

“A shower,” you echo. “I don’t think I know what that is.” 

Dirk lights up, smiles in a way that you don’t think you’ve seen before in its genuine, unrestrained delight. “I’ll show you,” he says. 

Well, you’d be hard put to resist enthusiasm like that. You follow Dirk up the final set of stairs behind his bed to the uppermost floor. 

There are several fixtures to the bathroom that are familiar to you. Separated off to the side, a place for relieving yourself. A bathtub, large enough for more than one person. A basin for washing your hands and face. Dirk moves past all of these to an area closed off by glass walls. He opens the door to it and twists a handle. 

Water pours from the ceiling in a controlled spray. Dirk looks incredibly pleased with himself. 

“It’s warm,” he tells you, wetting his hand under the spray demonstratively. He turns the water back off after a moment. “There’s multiple settings, so you can control how much water flows out, and how strongly, that sort of thing.” 

“Wow,” you say, impressed. “That’s a neat trick! Probably nicer than stewing in a soup of your own filth, I bet.” 

He shrugs. “Baths can be very pleasant,” he says. “I personally prefer showers.” 

“I’ll give it a whirl, then,” you say. 

“Right,” Dirk says. “There’s, uh, here.” He opens a cabinet and gives you a towel. “I’ll just be downstairs?” 

“Alrighty,” you say. 

Dirk hovers for another moment before backing out of the room with an awkward wave. You hide your smile until he’s gone, then grin at the mirror. Beneath the charm and poise, he’s a bit of a dork, your husband, isn’t he? 

You turn the water on again, still a bit thunderstruck by the mechanism of it, and strip your clothes off. When you step in, the water is warm, almost hot, falling on you like a heavy rainstorm. You tilt your head back into the stream, eyes shut. 

It’s a few long minutes before you reach for the soap. You can absolutely see why Dirk likes showers, though you still think there’s nothing that quite beats a good soak in the tub. You do wonder where the water goes, when you’re so high up off the ground. There must be some sort of mechanism that lets it drain down. But then, where does the water come from? 

Or it’s just magic. Likely it’s just magic. 

The soap you find smells of something vaguely spicy, and lathers easily in your hands. You’ve always felt a bit self-conscious in other people’s spaces, but, well! Dirk made himself at home in your house, and so his house is by all rights yours as well. You put aside your misgivings and give yourself a good scrub down, nice and thorough. You keep sniffing your hands again because of how swell the scent of the soap is. You’re liable to smell good enough to eat at this rate! 

As lovely as the shower is, though, you turn it off once you’re passably clean. The towel is so soft that you nearly think Dirk has given you a blanket by mistake. You pat most of the water from your hair, sling the towel ‘round your shoulders, and shamelessly proceed to snoop. 

There is a big medicine cabinet mounted on one wall. You open it and examine the contents interestedly. There are a lot of little jars of things, lotions and potions, all with neat little labels written in a neat, round hand. Burn cream, salve, hand lotion, face lotion, lubricant, nail gloss, whoa, excuse you, what. 

No, you were right the first time, Dirk has a little tub of “lubricant” sitting bold as brass among his body care products. You pluck it off the shelf gingerly to unscrew the top to see if it really is bona fide sex oil. 

It looks… like a thick oil. You dip your pinky in and rub the oil into the skin of your wrist. After a moment, both your pinky and your wrist begin to feel the faint heat of the oil warming you. It doesn’t rub in easily, stays glistening on your skin. This seems like a solid tick in the “probably a sex thing” column. You screw the cap back on and raise your wrist to your nose for a whiff. 

It smells just the faintest bit floral, but mostly just like oil. Sensible, you suppose. 

Your wrist is tingling. You rub it self-consciously against your hip, which doesn’t help in the slightest. When you came up here, you neglected to grab anything to change into, and the prospect of putting any of your travelling clothes back on is unappealing. Except perhaps the cloak, but the hem got a bit muddy. Not the best for staging a seduction. 

Decided, you hang up the towel and fold your things up to carry them downstairs, the oil tucked under your shirt. Before you go down, you’d better put your jewelry back on. You sit on the edge of the tub do to it. The anklets go on first, easily. Next are your rings, then the arm band and the bracelets. When you drop your hands to your lap, they jingle a little.

You creep down the stairs quietly, on alert for signs of Dirk. The clatter of his hooves alerts you that he’s nearby. He’s over looking at his bookshelves, fidgeting with — he’s lining his books up neater, that’s adorable. Maybe he realized you might come down naked and is giving you privacy, or else he hasn’t noticed you yet. 

You leave your clothes by the wall and sit on the edge of the bed, feeling out the softness of the cushions with your toes. The oil gets set where you can reach it, and then you slide into the bed, sinking into its grasp. Your bangles jangle as you settle, and when you peek over at Dirk again, he’s still facing away, but one of his ears has swiveled around towards the sound. Oh, good. 

This bed is interesting, set into the ground like this. The sides are sloped, but there’s some flatness at the base of it, so you don’t entirely slide into the center. You pull a dark, woven blanket over you and shift down, getting comfortable on your stomach with a pillow to help prop yourself up. 

You feel hot under your skin, unable to see Dirk from this angle but imagining him cottoning on to what you’re doing. When you reach down to stroke yourself, you’re already beginning to firm up, sensitive enough that your toes curl. 

Not wanting to get too riled up yet, you make yourself stop. You lean up and unscrew the lid of the oil container as quietly as you can, dip your fingertips in to get them just slick enough that you don’t think they’ll drip. The oil warms your fingers, and then the delicate skin around your hole. 

You bite your lip as you use one finger to rub slow circles around your rim, getting it slicked up. You’ve always liked this part, the first flash of startled pleasure that gives way to a steadier burn as you push in. As you work your index finger into yourself, you gasp out a tiny noise into your pillow. 

Sooner or later, Dirk is going to hear you and catch on to what you’re doing. He might already have. The thought only gets you hotter, makes you shift restlessly so that your skin drags against the blankets. You take a second to hike one of your knees up to your chest before you start tugging at your rim, getting your middle finger to start nudging in alongside the first. 

The stretch feels nice in the best way, zinging all through you and leaving your cock to hang heavy between your legs. You spread your fingers inside yourself, testing the feeling of opening yourself up. Your breathing’s gone rough, you note absently. 

The oil continues to warm up inside of you in a way that makes you squirm again. When you nudge up against your prostate, you can’t help the slightly louder noise that escapes you. The angle’s not good for it, but you press towards it again anyway, wanting that sharper burst of pleasure. You can almost reach it, your fingertips nudging against it when you strain to arch them back. 

You’re too absorbed in the feeling to pay attention to the sounds of the room anymore, so it takes you completely by surprise when the bed suddenly shifts. Dirk tugs the blanket off of you and sets a hand on your thigh, just below your ass. You startle and gasp, scrambling to twist around to look at him. 

“Making yourself at home, I see,” he says lowly — warmly. He leans forward to soothe you back down with a hand on your spine, and you relax slowly into the sheets again. 

“Well, it’s my home too,” you say, just the faintest tremor in your voice as Dirk moves his hand from up from your leg to your ass to spread you open. Your fingers have stilled inside of yourself, and he takes ahold of your wrist and relocates your hand up with your other beside your head. 

“Very true,” Dirk murmurs. He nudges your unbent leg further to the side until you flush to think of how exposed you are for him. 

You lose track of exactly where he is for a moment until you feel his breath against your lower back. He kisses each dimple on either side of your spine affectionately, and then you suck in a sharp breath as he meanders his way lower. 

By the time his very tip of his tongue traces around your rim, you’re expecting it, but your breath still punches out of you when he flattens his tongue to lick you. Your hand clenches in the fabric of your pillow. Dirk hums low in his throat as he licks over you, occasionally flicking his tongue against your rim. You twitch every time. 

When he focuses his attentions to your hole, toying with the rim, a whimper starts to build in your chest. You want to grind back against his face in need, but your dick is aching. Dirk’s hands are firm on you, holding you in place and preventing you from trying to grind against the bed despite how much you want to. 

The tip of his tongue dips into you where you’re already worked open, and you do moan aloud now, squirming against his hands. Dirk laughs against you, breath hot, and continues licking you open. 

You get louder as he works, trying to muffle most of your noises into the pillow, but the more sounds that escape you, the more he presses his tongue inside of you. He pulls back and plays with your rim again, tugging against it teasingly, then abruptly slides his tongue all the way into you. 

You shout and arch back against him. Dirk spreads his tongue wide in you and then makes it long and narrow, fucks you with it until you’re gasping his name. 

“Oh, oh, Dirk, please oh _gods_ ,” you pant. “You’re — oh frigging hell, _oh_.” 

Dirk hums in response, flicks his tongue over your rim again. He pushes back in, deep, and you’re so open for him, squirming back against him. You try to tilt back further so he can get deeper, and Dirk reaches around, casual as you please, to wrap his hand around your dick. You cry out, buck against him, as he jerks you once, twice, and then you’re coming, his name a broken and desperate shout on your lips. 

You sag against the bed, trembling, aftershocks still sparking through you. Dirk pats your ass and then hauls you back up again by the hips. You moan brokenly when he rubs his dick pointedly over your hole. 

“Yes, yes, please,” you beg. 

Dirk groans, the first hint you’ve gotten at how you’re affecting him. The tip of his dick catches against your hole and he pushes in without preamble. You’re so open and relaxed that he practically glides right in, sinking deep. Another shock of overstimulated pleasure jolts through you, your dick twitching near-painfully. 

“Ohhh,” you moan as Dirk begins rocking in and out of you. You just brace yourself, try to clench down around him the next time he pushes in. You barely recognize the sounds coming out of yourself, a near-constant stream of strained gasps and pleas. 

Dirk fucks you right through it, the cilia clinging to you as he moves and somehow finding all your most sensitive spots to torment. He’s so deep that you can barely get your head around it, and you only want him deeper. Your feet curl and flex, trying to keep purchase so you can push back against him. 

“Shh,” Dirk hushes you when you whimper out a particularly loud moan. “It’s alright, hm? You feel so fucking good, you know that? Fuck, look at you. So gorgeous.” 

You just shake. You shut your eyes and sink deep into the steady rhythm of his dick into you. Dirk continues murmuring to you, hands steadying your body for himself. It feels so good that you want to curl away from it, or maybe just tilt your hips up and get him as deep as you can for as long as you can. 

You’re hot, hot, hot all the way through, squirming for him, so lost in the feeling that you almost feel like you’re floating. 

“Shit,” Dirk gasps, and fucks all the way into you. You feel him spill into you, dick pulsing inside your body. He pulls out, leaving a trail of hot come dripping down. 

You just whimper faintly. Dirk moves and drops next you on the bed and half-lifts, half-helps you climb on top of him. You sprawl there, pressed together from head to toe. Dirk kisses the side of your face over and over as you tremble against him. 

“Missed you,” you finally whisper when you have your head mostly screwed back on. 

“I’m so sorry I scared you,” he returns softly, kisses your jaw entreatingly until you turn to meet his lips. He kisses you slowly, open mouthed and lingering, rubbing your back. It’s a lot to keep your head up, though, so you regretfully give up the kisses and just wrap yourself around him as close as you can. 

“...I can stay, right?” you remember to ask as you’re beginning to drift into a doze. 

“As long as you like,” he promises. He finds a blanket and tugs it over the both of you. You consider moving, rolling off of him, but he’s so warm and soft against your bare skin. Besides, he’s the one who put you there. You let your eyes close fully and hold onto him with your whole self as your mind quiets into sleep. 

Hours later, you wake, stomach rumbling from having forgotten to have dinner. You try to extricate yourself from the tangle of the bed which seems designed to pull you back down the moment you consider giving up escaping. Dirk stirs when you accidentally brace your foot against him as you boost yourself out of the bed. 

“Jake?” he mumbles, reaching out to snag ahold of you. 

“I’ll be right on back, don’t fret,” you whisper, but it’s too late. Dirk’s amber eyes open, sleepy and squinting up at you. 

“Everything okay?” he asks. 

A bit embarrassed, you say, “Forgot to sup, I’m afraid. I’m just going to get a snack, if that’s okay?” 

Dirk sits up. Of course he does. “I’ll make you something,” he says, yawning. He stretches up and then lifts himself easily out of bed. “Come on.” He holds out a hand to you, and, well. You’re not one to refuse an invitation so genuinely offered. You let him take you downstairs and ply you with little morsels of treats, sweetbread and toasted nuts and strange, edible flowers that are almost spicy on your tongue, and then he kisses you drowsily with the dusky half-light of Autumn still streaming in through the windows to illuminate his home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: uh, rimming? it's pretty much just straight up rimming and anal. oh, and there's warming lube.


	12. Chapter 12

You wake up slowly, with Dirk sprawled warm and loose-limbed all around you. The bed is so comfortable that it feels like a crime to pry your eyes open, but eventually your growing sense of unfamiliarity finally forces you awake. When you open your eyes, you are confronted by the sight of… a wall of pillows? Your blankets seem to rise up above you, and you are briefly baffled.

“Morning,” Dirk says, lips moving against the back of your neck, and it all falls back into place. That’s right. You’re in Autumn, in Dirk’s house, in his bed.

“And a fine morning to you, too,” you reply. The lighting leaves you briefly disoriented before you remember that the sun is always just below the horizon in Autumn. “Though I must say that it doesn’t much feel like morning with the sun gone.”

Dirk laughs softly. “It’s a bit of an adjustment, I think,” he says, nosing the back of your neck.

You squirm. “Are you trying to work me up? That’s right unsporting of you, trying to get frisky before there’s been so much as a hint at breakfast.”

He pinches your side and you yelp in protest. “How dare I,” he says, deadpan, but rolls over.

You sit up, yawning, and stretch. “Did you sleep well?” you ask him.

“I sleep better with you around, so yes,” he says. “Did you?”

“I slept like a log,” you say, and nudge him with a toe. “Your blankets are unfairly soft. I want to wear them.”

He nudges you back. “If you wish to, you can.” You watch him haul himself easily out of the bed with the assistance of his long legs. It’s a bit more of a scramble for you, but you follow him out of bed and stretch again to your full height. You’re still naked, but so is Dirk, and you can’t bring yourself to mind one whit.

Especially when he gives you an appreciative once-over before turning away towards the stairs. “Anything in particular that you’re in the mood for?” he asks.

You follow his swishing tail down, tempted to try and grab it. “Surprise me!” you say.

“A challenge, huh?” Dirk hops the final few stairs and strolls into his kitchen. “Hope I’m up to the task.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can manage _something_ ,” you tease, crossing to lean against his dining chairs to watch him. “Surely you’re clever enough to have an idea or two.”

The end of his tail twitches, and he opens his mouth to no doubt fire something off in return, when the house suddenly fills with the sound of chimes.

“What the dratting hell?” you ask, instinctively looking around for the source of the sound.

Dirk shuts a cabinet with a sharp click. “Someone’s at the door,” he says, frowning. He shuts his eyes and presses a hand to the wall for a moment, then yanks it back. With a resigned sigh, he says, “It’s — a friend. She’s going to want to come in, just a warning. I’ll go see if I can turn her away, but…” He trails off.

“Oh,” you say, tensing. “I, I’m going to go get dressed, then.”

He nods. “She’ll like you, don’t worry about that. And I won’t let her be unkind.”

The chimes sound again. From downstairs, you hear someone knock loudly and insistently.

“I’m sorry about this,” Dirk tells you, then turns to head down the stairs. You hurry up in turn, taking the stairs two at a time. His wardrobe is closest, and you fling it open to grab the first thing you see, which turns out to be a plain, simple brown skirt. Good enough.

From somewhere down below you can hear voices as you loop the skirt’s ties shut. Fucking goshdamn shit, where’s your sweater. You hop up onto the bed platform and yank it on, the wool rasping against your skin. Good enough. You feel a bit exposed still with the air swirling uninvited around your crotch, but it’ll have to do.

You start back down the stairs, trying to tread softly so as not to make any noise. The voices come clearer as you descend, and you pause on the last set of stairs, trying to gauge the tone of the conversation.

“—Hiding away off in here, a girl would almost think you were avoiding her,” a voice says in a teasing, lilting tone. You tense up. That sounds to you like a gilded accusation.

“You know I’m not,” Dirk responds wearily. “Last night was… a bit of a situation.”

“Gotta scoop your little human up and whisk him off to safety, hmm?”

“I am devoted to his protection.”

“Look at you, mincing words like the best of us!” Footsteps tapping across the ground — not Dirk’s, they have the slap sound of fleshy feet rather than his distinctive hoofsteps. Dirk grumbles something, sounds like he’s pushing her away. She laughs.

You finally take the last few steps down and enter Dirk’s sitting room. It’s the same faerie that you blurrily recall from last night. Her visage disturbs you. She has strange tendrils of vines for hair, mixed with blooming flowers, and her eyes are centered within the delicate petals of a flower as if they were eyelashes. Flowers sprout from various other places in her flesh, which is tinted all over with a slightly green tone. Her feet and hands are human-shaped, though, and her legs, though she has... various smatterings of that same vine-hair. And her breasts, if you ignore the flowers blooming around her nipples. You fix your gaze on Dirk, determined not to flush.

“Oh, Jake,” Dirk says. “May I introduce—”

“What a _cutie_ ,” the faerie exclaims. Cripes, there are those thorn-teeth you remember. “Look at you, you’re so adorable, I could eat you right up! Dirk, you can’t keep this one locked up in here. It would be criminal not to share him.”

“Erm,” you say, leaning back as she strides towards you with a big grin.

“He’s not locked up anywhere,” Dirk says. “This is his home, too. And he’s not for sharing.” You get your first good look at him since coming down here, and find him with his ears twisted to the sides and his tail twitching, very much reminding you of an irritated cat.

“No?” she pouts, crowding you up against the wall. “Not even a little nibble?” She runs her (pink, human) tongue over her teeth and winks at you.

“She’s teasing you,” Dirk says pointedly. “She won’t actually eat you, and no, Roxy, you don’t get to ‘borrow’ him.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stares a hole in her back until she backs off.

“You got me, I’m only joking,” she admits, spreading her arms wide as if to say, _What can you do?_ “Dirky’s got no sense of humor, that old fussboat. Really, the best thing he’s got going is his hot bod, but I’m sure you know all about that.” Her eyebrows aggressively waggle at you. “You may call me Roxy. I’m your prince’s favorite cousin.”

“You can call him Jake,” Dirk says before you can even begin ungluing your tongue and figuring out how to respond to this introduction. “To be clear, Jake, we’re not cousins by relation.”

“Your words cut so deep,” she says. “Another fae might feel the stirrings of offense, but I’ve had to grow used to your cruel words.”

Dirk mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _whatever_ and then clears his throat. “Jake and I have only just risen. We were going to have breakfast.”

“Ooh, breakfast, that sounds fucking delicious,” Roxy says brightly. “Really, the only thing that beats a good roast over the fire after a good Hunt is home cooking, don't you think?” She bats her eyelashes at you.

“Dirk… is… a good cook,” you manage faintly, still pressed back against the wall.

“Well, let’s not waste any time, then, if you’ve already waited this long to get a taste of his… honey and oats.” She turns and without a backwards glance begins bounding up the stairs.

You stare wide-eyed at Dirk, who sighs and then slumps, uncrossing his arms.

“Give her a chance?” he tries. “She’ll go easy on you once she finishes doling out her rounds of retribution for how long its been since we saw each other. Not that its any fault of mine.” He mutters the last part, sounding annoyed.

“Boys, what’s the hold up?” Roxy shouts from above.

Dirk rolls his eyes. “She’s my oldest friend,” he tells you. “She won’t hurt you, even if she’s a bit… sharp tongued.”

You find your voice. “I… if you vouch for her, then I believe you.”

His tense posture shifts into something like relief, and he leans in to kiss your cheek before following her up the stairs. You trail after him, more slowly, trying to get your head into a place where you can manage this verbal combat.

When you reach the kitchen, Roxy has sprawled out in one of the chairs, a posture that would be flagrantly not meant for public settings among humans but seems to be fine for faeries. Or that is meant to embarrass Dirk, judging by the way his ears flatten out again. “So, what’s cooking?” she prompts him.

“I heard a request for oats,” Dirk says, clopping over to the cabinets and pointedly avoiding looking at her splayed positioning. You tentatively take a seat across from her, where her body is mostly blocked by the table.

“I’m fine with anything,” you say.

“Anything, huh?” Roxy drops you another absurdly dramatic wink, her eye petals fluttering. They’re as pink as her actual irises. “Boy, you must be having some fun with this old stick in the mud.”

You predictably flush but straighten your shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I am,” you tell her.

“Oh, really?” She props an elbow on the table and gazes at you. “Do tell.”

You shrug. “What’s there to say? Dirk’s a man of many talents.”

“I did see he has you decked out in his jewelry,” she says.

“Yes indeed.” You toy with your wedding ring. “He’s made me many a fine gift, in fact.”

“I’m glad his hobby finally found a purpose,” she says. “Poor thing’s had nobody to give gifts to.” She tucks a vine behind her ear, revealing a piercing. You don’t take the bait to ask about it. “I worry about him, out here without any friends,” she confides behind a raised hand, as if Dirk’s ears aren’t swiveled towards you. “Out of all his talents, loneliness is my least favorite.”

“I’m not sure I’d call that a talent,” you reply carefully.

She flips over to lascivious again so fast that you feel dizzy. “And what _would_ you call a talent?” Her grin leaves no room for misinterpretation. “I’ve heard such interesting things about his—”

“Roxy,” Dirk snaps.

“You don’t already know?” you ask, aiming for patronizing and perhaps coming off a bit more accusatory than you intended.

“Nah. He isn’t really into girls,” she says. “Or fae, to be honest.”

“What, really?” you ask, interest piqued.

“No. That is not true,” Dirk says.

Roxy rolls her eyes. “Puh- _lease_ , Dirk. Everyone knows why you picked a hubby from the human world rather than one of us.” She leans in conspiratorially to you. “Dirk isn’t actually very good at being fae.”

“That statement makes no sense,” Dirk says sharply. “That would be like saying a bird is bad at being a bird.” His tail is lashing quite a bit now and he’s hunched over what you assume is some form of stove, looking a mix of defensive and embarrassed.

“Alright, alright.” Roxy leans back in her chair. “Dirk’s perfectly good at being _fae_. Better than me.” She grins, though you don’t think you get the joke. “But he didn’t want to bother with jumping through all the hoops to get what he wanted. Easier to charm some sweet-faced human boy.

“Not to say that Dirk hasn’t been with any fae,” she continues before you can object to being called easy. “There’ve been a few. That charmer from Summer — Dirk, you remember him, right?” (Dirk shuts a drawer, looking sour.) “And a few others. But.” She waves a hand. “Humans are cute, if you like them weak and helpless. No offense meant. ‘S just not an initially level playing ground, you know?”

“You know I disagree entirely, and why,” Dirk says. He brings over a pair of mugs filled to the brim with piping hot tea. “No need to rehash the same damn debate, Rox.”

“Alright, don't get your tail in a twist, Dirkitty.” Or maybe Deerkitty? You're not quite sure what to make of that nickname.

His tail lashes in offended response, and, well, it is rather catlike, isn't it? “I’m going to put something in your oatmeal if you keep that up,” he says.

“Not very hospitable of you.” Roxy tips her chair back, long limbs stretched out. She looks very pleased with herself.

Dirk mutters something to the approximation of, “Yeah, well, whatever,” and clatters back to the kitchen in a bit of a huff. You'd be concerned, but… this feels more and more like the sort of banter you hear between friends who have known each other for a very long time.

“What was that nickname?” you ask instead. “I’m afraid I didn't quite catch it.”

Roxy turns her alarming grin on you. “Deerkitty?” You hear it more clearly this time. “Deer and Dirk and kitty all together. On account of how he's a half-Summer boy, you know?”

You don’t know. “He’s—?” You twist to look at Dirk, who half-shrugs.

“One of my parents is from Summer,” he confirms.

“Yeah, he’s got big old deer dad, King of the Forest, that who Dirk gets the headgear from,” Roxy agrees. “But _then_ there’s his other dad, Royal Consort Vantas. As the story goes, the very moment that the King of Autumn laid eyes on the grumpy little Summer cat for the first time, he was swept away by the tides of love.”

“Yeah, yeah, but then was rebuffed with the most fanged words of rejection, et cetera, then eventually they got married and had me.” Dirk thumps bowls down in front of the two of you and then gets his own and takes a seat. “They’ll probably want to meet you at some point,” he tells you. “If that’s alright?”

“Oh, um.” You pick up your mug and take a sip to settle your suddenly ruffled nerves. “Of course. That’s to be expected. Sorry you couldn’t… meet my family. Other than Janey.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he says, and knocks Roxy’s chair back down to all four of its legs with one casual gesture. “Stop showing off your tits and eat your breakfast.”

“Rude!” she says. “So damn impolite to a guest in your own house, Dirk, I can hardly believe it.”

“No more or less rude than trying to knock my door down while I was still asleep and then inviting yourself in for a meal.” Looking distinctly unthreatened, Dirk begins eating his breakfast, ignoring Roxy’s mock-offense.

“I didn’t realize you were part-cat, though,” you say, spooning up your first bite. The oatmeal is excellent, just a hint of chewiness, mixed with honey and sweet berries. “I suppose that explains the tail.”

With a half-glance at Roxy, Dirk flicks his aforementioned tail up into your lap under the table. It lands across your legs, a soft weight over the skirt you’d borrowed from him. You smile a little and rest a hand on it, fingers curling into his fur.

“Adorable,” Roxy stage-whispers at you, and… Despite your initial sense that she was dangerous, you find yourself liking her a little bit. There’s something in the way that Dirk is so clearly embarrassed by her words but still so comfortable around her that draws you in. This is the first time you’re really seeing him interact with someone other than yourself that he feels amicable towards.

“Have you met them?” you ask Roxy. “Dirk’s parents, I mean.”

“Oh, sure,” she says around a spoonful. “One of my moms is close with Consort Vantas. I met Dirk when I was just a seedling, and he was still a little fawn. We would play in the garden together.”

Dirk flicks his tail in your lap to get your attention, and then tilts his head, ear flexing out to its farthest stretch. “The stud earring shaped like a flower was a gift from one of Roxy’s mothers,” he tells you.

“Oh!” you say, recalling the conversation you’d had before about that earring. “But then — didn’t you say it was from a human?”

Roxy nods. “I have a human mother and a fae mother,” she explains. “Mama found a human with a flower’s name and stole her away to cultivate in her garden. I run with a branch of the Hunt now, but I stop by to visit sometimes.”

“Huh,” you say, trying not to feel too unsettled at the suggestion of a human being stolen. “Is that common? Children between humans and faeries?”

She just shrugs. “It’s not uncommon? Dunno really. Depends on where you are. Warmer areas are more likely to bang or breed a human instead of just, you know, eating them or something.”

You don’t reply, a little lost for words in the face of her casual inhumanity, and the conversation moves on without you. Roxy speaks to Dirk about names you don’t know, places you have neither been nor ever heard of. You drink your tea, let Dirk refill it when it grows low, and sink into your thoughts.

It bothers you a little bit, the suggestion that one of Dirk’s primary reasons for choosing you has to do with the simple fact of your humanity. Not due to anything in particular about yourself, not because you acknowledged his presence and spoke to him or because he liked to watch your work in your garden, but because it was easier to seduce a human. Simpler, without the verbal jousting of wooing another faerie.

And Dirk didn’t say she was wrong, just that he disagreed with her. Your stomach feels hollow and sour, even filled with tea and honeyed oats. Surely there’s a more complex explanation, but you’re not certain you want to hear it. Instinct suggests it will sting more than anything else in the navigations of your differences has so far.

Roxy seems to have been contented by breakfast and some chatter time, and excuses herself from staying longer as easily as she’d invited herself in. Dirk sees her to the door, and you trail after them, still wading through the molasses pools of your thoughts.

“Will I see you later?” she asks him.

Dirk skitters a quick glance in your direction, then back to her. “Perhaps,” he says.

She sticks her tongue out and turns to you instead. “Nice to meet you, Jake. I’m sure I’ll see you around again before I leave. If you ever want to meet my mother, talk to her about living in Faerie as a human spouse, I would escort you to Spring as my guest.”

“Oh,” you say, yanked unceremoniously from your head. “Tha — That’s very generous of you. I appreciate it very much.” Living in Faerie. The thought had not so much as flitted across your mind. You couldn’t abandon your grandma’s house, but… The doorways to Faerie do shut themselves as time goes on.

She nods. “Any friend of Dirk’s is a friend of mine,” she says, and you have the unsettling feeling that you passed a test you didn’t know she had been administering.

Roxy turns away and grabs Dirk by the antler to yank him down so she can kiss his cheek. He makes a startled sound of complaint and shakes her off, ears and tail twitching. “Come to the revelry tonight,” she orders him. “I want to spend time with you.”

“Very well,” Dirk acquiesces. “I’ll be there.”

The invitation is not extended to you. Dirk shuts the door behind her, the latch clicking shut firmly, and for the first time in your marriage… you feel just a mite bit trapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> davekat and rosemary parents, obvs
> 
> can you spot the [gushing gold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8392597) reference? (included with permission of course)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT LIVES

The Hunt goes on its merry way a few short days later, to your quiet relief. As interesting as it was to see Dirk interacting with his childhood friend, you are getting sick of staying inside to avoid the danger of crossing paths with any of the members of the Hunt. And, to be frank, though Roxy was for the most part pleasant company, you never quite shook the initial intimidation of meeting her.

Dirk, though. Dirk is clearly unhappy to see her go so soon. He looks decidedly woebegone all through the dinner before the departure. Roxy dotes on him more effusively, hanging off his shoulder like a limpet. You feel a trifle like an eavesdropping outsider to their years of friendship, and it’s not the world’s most comfortable sensation!

You’ve never felt so uncertain of your footing with Dirk, not since he was first coming to spy on you as a deer. It’s terribly unfair to feel resentful of Roxy’s ease with Dirk, or of how he banters with her with such unconcern. He’s never so nonchalant with you.

It is an unkind envy. You try to brush it to the side. She’s leaving, off to roam the realm, and you’ll have Dirk to yourself again. Hopefully he won’t be too unhappy once she leaves? He didn’t seem unhappy before she arrived. You think.

They say their goodbyes in private, in Dirk’s sitting room on the ground floor. Roxy knocks her head against Dirk's gently. “Don’t forget to talk to your family for months again,” she scolds. “I’ll be back through soon enough, so don’t mope. Your boy is too cute to have you inflicted on him when you’re all sulky.”

“I don’t sulk,” Dirk grumbles, but accepts her embrace. “I’ll miss you.” It’s spoken with keen honesty.

Roxy just squeezes him tighter. “I’ll miss you too, Deerkitty. Be good.” She reaches up and hauls him down by one antler, ignoring his wince, to ruffle his hair.

He pushes her off and she turns to you instead. You straighten up.

“It was nice to meet you,” you tell her, putting on a smile.

She ignores this pleasantry. “Dirk picked you, so that means you must be special,” she says. “Be nice to him.” It’s stated like a command. A pronouncement. You swallow.

“I will,” you say.

She nods. “Good. I expect I’ll see you next time I’m through.” Another statement of firm fact. You feel a tad queasy.

“Have… a good Hunt?” you try. She grins in that creepy-toothed way of hers.

“I’ll see you off,” Dirk says to her. Then, to you, “I’ll be back shortly.” No invitation for you to come along.

“I’ll be here!” you chirp. You stand there and watch the door shut behind them. Lovely. Left behind to your own devices. Just wonderful.

_Don’t be ungrateful_ , you scold yourself in a tone that suspiciously resembles your grandma’s. Still, you feel a little aimless as you head back up the spiral staircase. Dirk’s workshop lures you in, as the floor that you’ve seen the least of. He has a very long, curved workbench, and many shelves and boxes full of glittering trinkets.

You inspect them, at first cautious. There’s many a tale of fae bibelots with tricky hexes on them. But they are too pretty to keep hands off for long, and if his things are made to hex a husband’s wandering hands then you’ll need to have words with him about the definition of “what’s mine is yours,” so you go ahead and pick a pair of ear studs up.

They’re… delicate. Not really your style. The front is an intricate floret, layers of tiny metal flower petals. You replace them carefully and pick up another pair. Gleaming gold suns, this time, with a sliver of a jewel for the center.

This room is filled with jewelry, most not things you can see Dirk wearing. You’ve seen him change out an earring, but only that one time. He seems to stick to his current set for the most part. He has enough finished products to open up a shop in a city, practically, and they’re all just… moldering away on shelves.

There must be years and years worth of projects here. You spin on one heel to take it all in again. The room practically gleams, reflecting the glowing faerie lights.

Well! You don’t know why he’s hoarding all these bonny bits and bobs away, but the reason is surely something silly. His creations deserve to be admired. You feel more discomfited digging around in this room than the rest of the house, so you head back upstairs, rather than continue contemplating the strange processes of your husband’s mind.

It takes Dirk an annoyingly long time to return from fulfilling his princely duties and seeing off the Hunt, and you flit from one activity to the next, unable to settle. You’re not accustomed to being so long cooped up. Even in the coldest months you have chores to do and nosy neighbors to come a-knocking. Maybe now that Dirk isn’t playing double-host to two houseguests he’ll take you around the area.

Except you’re not a guest! This is meant to be your home, too, not a house with a door always shut. Is this Dirk’s take on being a mortal caught in Autumn? Does he think you’ll bolt back to the village the moment he lets you wander? No, you’re being uncharitable. You’ll ask to go for a stroll when he’s back. It’s just been busy and you’re both adjusting. And Autumn is hardly hospitable to humans, you know that.

Dirk returns while you’re digging through his wardrobe, looking for a sweater you can borrow. He’s rather lacking in upper body garments, you’ve found. “I’m back,” he states unnecessarily from the head of the stairs.

“Hullo, hope the send-off went well,” you say, not looking up from your options. “How’s the weather out there?”

“Same as nearly every other day,” Dirk says. You feel his eyes on your bare back, and, well, that’s gratifying. “Chilly and dim.”

“Sound refreshing,” you say. “No offense intended, but I think I’m running a bit of a cabin fever. Do you fancy a stroll?” You look over at him hopefully. “I’ll wear your cloak if that makes things easier. Property of Prince Dirklin, no villains allowed to whisk me away from you.” You try for a bright grin at him, hoping that will help convince him.

“Oh,” Dirk says. A tremor courses through his ears when you smile, which you think means it worked. “Sure, we can do that. Do you just want to see the area, or are we talking more of a distance hike?”

“I didn’t really get a good look around with how fluffed in the head I was when I arrived here, so I think I mostly just want a look around,” you say. Dirk has a loose linen shirt that you can pull on and tuck into the waist of a skirt. And then your sweater over it, perhaps?

“Totally doable,” Dirk says. “Just, uh, careful where you step? Folks get touchy if you step on their plants. Do you think you can go barefoot? I can always make you some softer shoes if it ends up hurting your feet.”

Oh. That’s unexpected. You look down at your feet. “Might be cold?” you hazard. “But… I think my feet might be tough enough. I’ll give it a solid shot, how’s that sound?”

“Works for me,” Dirk says. He manages to give you something resembling a smile as well. “Now, or…?”

“Now sounds excellent,” you say firmly. You tug your sweater on over Dirk’s shirt. “Good thing I got the mud out of the hem of the cloak, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to go out unpresentable. Though I suppose I’ll be overdressed.”

“Wear what makes you most comfortable,” Dirk assures you. “Nobody will think much of it. You’re human.”

“That I am,” you mutter. Roxy said something about Dirk preferring humans. You still have no idea what that was about.

You grab your wedding cloak and clasp it around your shoulders. “Alrighty,” you say brightly. “I’m ready for my escort.” You hold your arm out to Dirk teasingly, reassured by his willingness to take you out and about.

Dirk shakes his head, but his little smile broadens. He loops his arm under yours and you lean into his side, cheered, as the two of you head downstairs.

The sound of chimes singing in the distance reaches your ears the moment Dirk opens the door. They call to you alluringly, making your feet itch to find them. You blink and shake off the impulse. Right. Dirk’s house muffles the sounds of fae reveling. You hold onto his arm firmly. The ground is indeed cold under your feet, but not unbearably so. The skirt is the same heavy wool as your cloak, so your legs stay nice and snug.

Dirk squeezes your arm. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Nothing can touch you, so long as you’re with me.”

“Right-o,” you say, and dig your toes into the soil to ground yourself. “Onwards, then!”

Dirk shakes his head wryly, but the two of you set off on your jaunt nonetheless. You take in the sights curiously. Your grandma would have loved to see what you’ve got an open invitation to observe. She would have taken endless notes and quizzed Dirk about the intricacies of the fae flora. And the fauna — you spot a little chipmunk with tiny antlers scrambling up a tree as you pass.

The trees, too, are a sight to behold. Many of them aren’t so large around as Dirk’s, presumably not having been encouraged to grow to house any folks. But still, they’re foreign to you, shimmering silver bark and jewel-toned leaves and strange purple fruits that hang alluring and luscious just out of reach. Leaves that hang like chains between branches, trees that look for all the world as if they were dead, except still fully outstretched and reaching for the dusky sky.

“Do they grow like this naturally?” you ask Dirk, indicating your surroundings. “Or do you encourage them to grow like this?”

“Some of both,” he tells you, steering you deeper into the trees, away from what sounds like strangely-voiced birdsong. “Our presence inspires the plants to grow in certain ways, or to change for the ordinary path of its growth. But, I believe, we also simply have species that aren’t able to grow in mundane realms. Here.” He pauses you and reaches up. The shrub bends down towards him, and… he looks so princely, with the forest tilting to meet him.

It’s not such a welcome thought. “What’s this one, then?” you ask, to bury your strange momentary discomfort.

“Just a flavor I thought you might enjoy,” he says, and accordingly when he offers his hand to you, he has a cluster of pearly white berries in his palm. You take one and bite into it cautiously. The taste explodes across your tongue, the skin crisp and tender, the meat just slightly sour. The inside of the berry is a rich fuchsia.

“It’s delicious,” you say, and Dirk’s ears tilt up, pleased. You accept the whole handful and snack on them as he ushers you along.

“I settled in this part of Autumn in part because of the landscape,” he tells you.

You look up at him, curious. “Is it so different from where you were before?”

“In some ways,” he agrees. “The trees where I spent my childhood all leafed in shades of red and gold. I was quite taken with how green my surroundings were, here. Not everything here is safe, of course, but it's all pretty eye-catching.”

Ever courteous, he holds a low hanging branch out of the way for you to duck under. You next steps take you onto something soft and spongy under your feet, and you look down, surprised. The ground here is blanketed in deep green moss that your feet sink into.

“It’s okay to walk on this?” you ask, worried. You never thought much of crushing a few delicate plants underfoot at home, but… It wouldn’t shock you to hear that this moss might object strongly to being trodden upon.

Dirk laughs softly as he retakes your arm. “It’s just moss,” he assures you. “Nobody is cultivating it, so there’s no one to take offense. It’s a resilient species, I promise.”

“Well, you would know,” you say, gingerly taking another step. The moss springs back up once you lift your foot, to your relief.

You seem to be approaching a glade of thinner trees that all reach out towards each other in what frankly looks like a friendly manner. Or, no, you’re mistaken. They’re laden with thickly flowered vines that loop around and connect the branches together, creating an intricate canopy.

But also: from in the glade, there come voices.

Dirk goes tense, and his tail lashes once, striking against the backs of your knees. His face is still as a pond, though, and his ears stay neutrally pointed upward. You glance at him nervously.

“Just follow my lead,” he murmurs to you.

Arm in arm as you are, you’re drawn forward, alongside the glade until the speakers come into view. You spot the wings first, a pair of dragonfly-like appendages that seem to cast their own light. The rest of this faerie’s body is...equally buglike, to be frank, and you think you see their long tongue darting out. Their companion is built in the shape of some kind of… cat? Powerful muscles and stripes that remind you of an ordinary tabby, though no house cat has ever made you want to curl up in prey fear.

Dirk shows no sign of uncertainty. Well, of course not. He lives alongside stranger creatures. He is one of these beings, just… more benign, you believe.

Or at least more known to you.

“Well, well! Hail to the prince!” calls the feline fae, and you feel Dirk’s whole body ratchet tighter. He curls his tail around your hips protectively, a warm barrier of fluff against the scrutiny.

“Greetings to you as well, Joilen,” he replies, voice as flat as polished stone. “And you, Trona.”

The insectile one chitters in reply, and your arms prickle with unsettled goosebumps.

“We’ve hardly seen you make your usual rounds of late,” says the feline. Faeline, heh. “I’m led to understand you’ve been quite occupied since the wedding — and what a pleasant festivity it was, I might add.”

Dirk draws the two of you to a halt a little closer to the other two than you would prefer, and you worry at the inside of your cheek, uncertain if you’re meant to greet them as well.

“We had to feed the bond, and of course that took some time, encouraging it to settle as it should,” Dirk says, and you look sidelong at him, wondering what he means by “feeding” your marriage bond.

“And now you’ve brought your husband home to walk the slopes of your arboreal palace with you,” they agree. “All as it should be, is it not?”

They are distinctly ignoring your presence, treating Dirk as if he was the possessor of your tongue and voice. It rankles, and you’re only more vexed when Dirk does nothing to correct this.

“Indeed, all is well,” says your overprotective mother hen of a deer.

“I find relief in seeing him looped on your lead.” The faeline exchanges a glance with their insectile companion, and there is nary a look thrown towards you. “I’d heard he’d wandered astray while the Hunt was about. You must’ve been relieved to tuck him in to roost after such excitement.”

You draw in a breath, but Dirk smacks your leg with his tail, and you seal your lips tight again.

“One must be careful with one’s charges,” the faeline concludes in a tone of such casual pleasantry that you want to stomp your feet in frustration. You’re hardly an exotic pet that hopped a fence to make a mess in the neighbor’s garden, but you know there’s danger here, and Dirk would know the best path through.

And yet it rankles so much.

The more you listen, the more annoyed you’ll be. They aren’t looking at you, so surely you needn’t offer a favor unreturned? You determinedly admire the landscape around you instead. The canopy and drapes of flowers hang around you like gauzy curtains, dimming what little light there was to begin with and turning the rest to shimmering gold.

“Caution is often the correct solution, though perhaps not always,” Dirk says. His tone is mild but his tail gives the game away, uncoiling from your waist to lash once. At least you aren’t the only one feeling a tad aggrieved at this game.

“Is there ever a solution that could reach all possible sequences?”

“I doubt it, though I know of no record keeper that could inscribe an account of all such variations.”

The winged insect fae emits a noise like a bee trailing a cacophony of clattering pots and pans that grates harsh over your poor eardrums. You wince involuntarily and then try to cover up the movement by turning just enough to peer at the nearest dangling vine.

The color of the petals reminds you almost of the color of Dirk’s eyes, but paler and softer, sunshine-gold rather than illuminated amber. It’s a color you’ve found yourself starting to associate with warmth and companionship, something pleasing to the eye and to the heart.

You can’t resist sneaking a sniff to see if it’ll smell as nice as it looks.

The flower smells delicate, like honey stirred into chamomile tea, sweet and soft and soothing. You inhale a deep lungful and sigh out a breath. The petals stir against the soft air current from your lungs, and curl in on themselves like shy children. You make a soft noise of dismay, and feel Dirk's tail wrap in tight around your ankle when he notices.

“Jake—” he has time to say, and then the petals burst open again, bright stamens reaching out long and petals unfurling wide and colorful, and from within them comes a burst of pale green smoke.

No. Not smoke.

Pollen.

It catches you across the face and you reel back with a cry. It strikes you with the same heady scent of sugared flowers, but stronger, so much stronger, filling your nose and mouth and lungs, clinging to your face with tacky stickiness. You choke on it, gag helplessly at how it clings to your tongue

Dirk catches you immediately when you stumble into him, an arm around your chest, pulling you back hard. He's saying something you don't quite catch as the pollen seems to burn into you, each individual fleck of it boring a hole through your flesh to ignite your veins in painfully shocking intensity. You lose your footing and he just scoops you up, same as he'd first ever carried you, and more or less books it out of the clearing.

Your eyes are open, and as you pass beneath the delicate flowers, you see them from the vines all around contract and then burst open, turning the air to a green haze.

The two fae Dirk had been talking to are laughing. The sound curls after you as Dirk makes swift headway into cleaner, presumably safer grounds.

You let him carry you until it burns too much to ignore, and then you struggle, squirming and wiggling and putting up as much of a writhing fight as you can with your limbs all akimbo and tingling. He swears under his breath, you think, that sharp intonation of cursed frustrated words, but the sound seems to come to you as if a sigh on the wind. Not quite audible enough to follow.

“Le...lemme down,” you demand in a mumble, words stumbling over the almost numbing burn on your tongue and in your throat.

Dirk's grip tightens on you. His next words you do understand. “Jake, those flowers, they have a special property that can be activa—”

You drum your feet against his fuzzy soft side. “Down!” you repeat. All at once, the burn of the pollen plunges down dizzyingly, sinking through your lungs and chest and stomach down to the very pit of your belly, and you need to have your feet on the ground this instant, damn you, or you'll be dragged down through the firm crust of the earth and out the other side.

Dirk deposits you on your feet and holds you against himself, which is good, because your legs damn near give out for a moment. You shove your face into the softness of his chest. It feels so good against your cheeks and nose and forehead. Gentle and warm and dragging in soft ruffles against your face.

“Dirk,” you murmur into his fur.

One of his hands insinuates itself between your shoulder blades. “Hey,” he says. “This pollen is an aphrodisiac. Uh, do humans have those, they're substances that—”

“Who gives a friggin' throbbing shit about flowers,” you tell his fur. He has nipples, peeking out from between slightly longer tufts of fur. They're pale, as pale as sunrise. You turn your head enough to stick out your tongue and curl it teasingly across the little pebbled nub.

Dirk sucks in a sharp breath. Oh, you like that. You like that a lot. "Hey," he says, more urgently. “I know you're probably feeling pretty, uh, riled up right now, but that's because—”

“Shush,” you say, dragging your cheek against him again. Oops, you're getting his palest fur all green, smearing off the thick streaks of pollen across him. Well, that's the height of rudeness, isn't it, using him as your own personal terry cloth. You lean in to try to lick it off his fur, get him dampened, suck at it if you need to, but Dirk unexpectedly seizes you round the skull.

“Jake, listen to me,” he says.

You frown up at him. His face crystallizes into sight. Oh, he's what the sky's lacking, how did you not see that before? No need for paltry little celestializations when you've got amber eyes and pale cream fur and the proud prongs of his antlers.

“No,” you say, tongue finally running a bit clearer. “No, you listen to me. Let me tell you, Dirk, I don't know how it's slipped my notice so badly before but it's a damn incriminating oversight. Got to clear it up before we all cloud over and then where will we be, you know, fogged up and smoggy and just plum useless all around, won't we?”

Dirk's lovely soft face creases in a further frown. Well, you've got to get that off his face, that's for certain.

You put your hands on his shoulders and shove. He stumbles back, startled, and you go with, catching your feet below you and crowding him in more and more until you get him back against the trunk of a tree. You stroke the bark with your hands curiously. Not as soft as your dearest, no. But Dirk raises no objection, and the bark sprouts no limbs to wrap you up in more of a hug, so you fasten your lips around his little nipple again and go in for a nibble.

He gasps, his back arches, he presses into your hands. Good, yes. Excellent. You lick and nibble and suck as Dirk wriggles around and makes complaining noises. Such a fussbudget. You reach merrily down and grasp ahold of his cock. It lies limp, but all his friendly little cilia latch on to your hand at once. Inviting. Practically an engraved invitation.

Dirk mutters a curse under his breath and fists a hand in your hair, pulling back until you're forced to look up at him. “What?” you ask, annoyed.

“You really want to do this here?” he asks. His cock twitches in your hand, and you squeeze it back, gently. “I can get us home pretty quick and then we can try to burn through this quicker. I don't know how much you inhaled before I got us away.”

You sigh, because really, was he just not listening to you? And no, you can't wait. No waiting, no sir, you need to taste his sunshine or you'll downright keel over and meet your final respite all lonely and cold on this nice mossy floor, still stiff as a rutting hound.

“You won't die,” Dirk says, apparently in response to your thoughts. What a clever boy, your deer. “It might be a little uncomfortable, but—”

“ _Shhh_ ,” you say. “Shh, shush. No more tongue waggling for you unless that pretty pink thing is in my mouth, got it?”

Dirk falls silent, face still creased and worried. His cilia are still eagerly caressing your hand, and you pet them back. Clever little things. They know what your fellow needs, don't they.

Oh, oh, they _are_ clever, you almost forgot. They'll merrily attend to your needs too, won't they? So long as you know how to ask, and you think you've been learning to play Dirk's tunes fairly well, all things considered and so on. You curl your fingers more tightly around him and wiggle them around until you can feel the little nub that holds the key to the real fun and massage it gently.

“Oh, fuck,” Dirk says tightly. His hands go tense against you as his half-hard cock shivers for you and his cilia twitch and pulse and start to ripple like the gentle waves of the stream behind your home. They leave little trails of tingling nectar across your knuckles and and palm. “You don't fucking play fair, you know that?”

You made a soft chiding sound, enraptured by watching the way his dick starts to glisten with the sheen of slick. “What did I say about not flapping your lips unless you're putting them to good use?”

He goes quiet again, and you lick your own lips absentmindedly. You like the way his slick tingles and burns on your skin. It feels even better when it's inside you.

The thought hits you like a sledgehammer, like another dizzying wave of pale green down your throat. You slump against him, groaning faintly, and let go of his cock. It's good, good enough, you need more right this very freaking instant or — or damn what Dirk says, you really will die, you feel it creeping up on you like a burn of terror at the thought of not getting him inside you right fucking now.

You relocate your hand back and shove two fingers into yourself, messy, careless, and the burn of it chases the fear out of your head. You sigh with relief and nuzzle into Dirk's chest. That's better. That's just right, just what you needed, sweet fucking Betsy — no, sweet fucking Dirk. Or, fucking you, because you're going to get his cock in you if it's the last thing you do.

You pull your fingers out and grab ahold of his tallywacker again, squeeze and stroke it and get your hand all slippery-slick and tingling. Dirk curses and hunches over you, hands on your sides holding you close against him. You hum and sway in closer, rest your cheek on his chest, eyelids heavy.

When you press your fingers back into yourself, working more of his slick in, you start to feel the warm prickles of heat that they inflict on your sensitive insides. Cripes, it feels good, matching the weird burn in your chest where the pollen settled, turning you all to flame through your loins. Your own scallywag of a tallywag is hard, you notice distantly. It's — it's there, the wanting for stimulation and friction, but it's secondary to the urgency of which you need to get fucked.

You need it _now_ , suddenly, and yank your fingers out without further ado. “Boost me up,” you demand, hooking your arms around Dirk's neck and trying to do the same with one of your legs around his. He's so dratting tall; it makes this all much too complicated to maneuver.

“Oh—” Dirk says, taking too long to react, and you whine impatiently, needing him. He catches on, though, and gets his hands down under your ass to lift you.

You have to settle with your body tucked in as close to his as possible for the angle to work, and moan when this means that your dick rubs against his body.

“Okay, okay,” Dirk says nonsensically, but then he spins around, carrying you with him until he can press you back against the tree. You moan again in encouragement, delighted that he has figured out what is going to be happening here. Finally.

You hitch yourself up higher against him helpfully and burn with need for him. He uses one of the hands he had tucked up under your ass to line himself up, and—

Everything in your body turns into a triumphant, incendiary blaze as he sinks in and in and in. Yes, yes, this is exactly what you needed, it’s exactly right and he can’t stop, none of this fucking pausing to see if you’re still with the program here because clearly he _still_ hasn’t quite caught on.

“Fuck me, Dirk,” you demand. He groans into the side of your neck, breath ruffling your hair, and obliges.

You friggin love how long he is, how deep he slides into you, how his cilia cling and tickle your rim and squirm inside you like a ceaseless wave. The heat of his slick joins in you with the heat of the pollen and turns your entire noggin to a hollow drum filled merely with an endless roar of pleasure. It’s so good. He makes you feel so good, every time, your plumb perfect darling, your sweet deer.

It’s good, and it’s also so much. You can’t think, can hardly breathe except to gasp and drum your feet helplessly on his back, cling ahold of him and try not to burn alive to no more than ashes. Dirk slides in you so inexorable, dragging out again your slicked up inner passages and shoving back in with hard thrusts that make your entire body light up and squeeze down around him. You don’t want him to ever stop. You want to keep him in you forever and have him just fuck you into oblivion and the end of all the stars, nothing but the sweet slide of his cock in you and his body bracketing you in warm and safe and _good_.

You can’t last against it, and you whine in frustration as it builds in you, the crashing rush of orgasm sneaking up over you while you’re helpless to fight it back. You want so much more, desperately so.

But it's irresistible and so warm, the heat and the pleasure and the way Dirk groans as you squeeze tight around him. The roaring in your ears sounds like a crowd of spectators all crowing  _yes, yes, yes!_ and you sink against the softness, and gentle warmth that wraps around you and hoists you up more securely, that holds you close and murmurs words of _let me_ and  _home_ , so you shut your eyes and drown.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings for: sex pollen!!!, altered mental states, mildly dubious consent, sex out in the open where anyone could see, and faeries being bitchy, and juuust a little bit of topping from the bottom :3


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